Ant Financial has released a new version of its Alipay app for iOS and Android, adding new Friends and Merchants tabs that provide support for peer-to-peer payments and for Koubei, the US$1bn mobile commerce joint venture between Ant Financial and Alibaba that was announced last month. More
Alibaba
KFC China restaurants to accept Alipay mobile payments next month
Nearly 5,000 KFC China fast food restaurants will accept Alipay mobile payments next month, following in the footsteps of Walmart which is rolling out support for the service in all of its Chinese stores by the end of this year... More
Alibaba and Ant Financial invest nearly $1bn in Koubei mobile commerce platform
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Alipay parent Ant Financial have each invested RMB3bn (US$483m) into Koubei, a joint venture that will let consumers order and pay for local services in China using their smartphone, “with an initial focus on the food and beverage segment”... More
Face++ raises $25m for selfie payments
Face++, the Chinese facial recognition technology startup behind Alibaba’s selfie payments service, has secured an additional $25m in a series B funding round, taking the total raised to $47m... More
Alibaba signs up brands for QR-like dotless visual codes
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has launched a platform for brands and product manufacturers that will enable them to place “dotless visual codes” on product packaging so that consumers can scan to check a product’s authenticity and get information, discounts and recommendations based on their preferences... More
Alibaba checks in simple hotel booking
Hotel customers with high credit scores will be able to book rooms on Alibaba’s online travel booking platform Alitrip without having to provide their credit card for room deposits and bypass check-out with payments automatically deducted from their Alipay accounts... More
Alibaba boss demonstrates selfie payments
Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma has demonstrated a prototype biometric verification service that could enable a payment to be authorized by simply capturing an image of a mobile phone user’s face. More
Apple Pay hits delays in China
“Apple Pay has hit bumps in China despite Apple’s efforts to make friends with Alibaba and UnionPay,” Caixin reports... More
Alibaba invests in visual QR codes
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has invested an undisclosed sum in Israeli start-up Visualead, developer of the “visual” QR code technology adopted by Chinese social media site RenRen in May last year... More
Alibaba to buy Paytm?
Alibaba is in advanced talks to buy an approximately US$500 million stake in One97 Communications, the parent company of Indian mobile payment platform Paytm... More
A million consumers sign up for Apple Pay in first 72 hours
Apple Pay saw more than one million card activations within 72 hours of launch and is already the leading NFC payments player in the US, Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed during the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive event. Cook also outlined future growth plans for the service, including a potential partnership with Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba. More
Alipay Wallet hits 190m users
Alibaba-owned online payments giant Alipay’s Alipay Wallet app now has 190 million active users in China who use the solution to shop online via their smartphones, pay bills and pay for public transport... More
Alipay tests NFC ticketing
Alibaba-owned online payments giant Alipay has launched an NFC ticketing service, ECNS reports... More
Alibaba launches mobile payments and services platform
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has unveiled Mashang Tao, a new platform that lets brands and merchants create QR codes that can be used to make purchases in stores, online and from printed advertisements, as well as provide a range of value-added services to consumers... More
Octopus and Alibaba add NFC security to ecommerce
Hong Kong prepaid card provider Octopus has partnered with Chinese online giant Alibaba’s Taobao ecommerce platform and Alipay mobile payments service to let customers make secure online purchases using a combination of contactless cards, QR codes and NFC phones. More
The new issue of Mobile Wallet Outlook is now out
The January/February issue of the monthly trends bulletin from the NFC World team’s business intelligence service examines the impact on the mobile wallet market of the new Facebook Card, the arrival of NFC in the home and the latest mobile wallet business developments from around the world. More