Drivers across the Canadian city of London can now pay for parking at more than 3,100 spaces across the city — including all municipal parking lots and on-street spaces — using a mobile app that lets them “seamlessly search, pay for and top up parking from their phone or tablet”. The service is being rolled out by the City of London. More
Samsung Pay has expanded to four additional markets with official launches in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and early access launches in Hong Kong and Switzerland. The service has also been made available on Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch in Russia, Sweden and the UAE in addition to its availability on the Gear S3 in the US, Singapore and Australia. More
Visa is to bring all of its contactless transactions online this year across 10 European countries to give consumers “more control over their accounts” following calls from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for banks to tighten the processes they undergo when a customer reports a stolen contactless card. American Express is also “reviewing options” to ensure those who cancel their cards are protected against contactless fraud. More
Westpac has become the first of Australia’s big four banks to begin supporting Samsung Pay, taking the service to “millions of Westpac Mastercard and Visa debit and credit cardholders” following its launch in the country with support from American Express and Citibank in June 2016... More
Facebook Messenger users across the US are now being prompted to send and request money transfers by an artificial intelligence-based feature that detects when a payment is being discussed in a conversation on the social media platform and responds with a suggestion designed to help the user complete that payment. More
Motorists across Canada can now pay for fuel and car washes as well as accumulate loyalty rewards using a mobile payment service that is being rolled out by fuel retailer Imperial Oil to 1,000 Esso-branded gas stations nationwide. More
Samsung Pay has launched in India with support from Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI Cards and Standard Chartered Bank, with Citibank India support expected “shortly”. The service has also integrated India’s leading mobile wallet Paytm and comes with support for peer-to-peer money transfers through the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface platform. More
Relying on Android or alternatives to NFC for successful mobile payment services in a country with one of the world’s largest iPhone market shares and high contactless card use is “unrealistic”, the group of Australian banks seeking access to the iPhone’s NFC functionality say in their latest submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)... More
Samsung has begun inviting Galaxy phone owners in India to register for early access to Samsung Pay. Customers can opt to pre-register Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank debit or credit cards and SBI Cards credit cards today with support for American Express and Citibank to follow. Paytm’s market leading mobile wallet will also be supported by the service. More
Indian consumers can now make QR code-based mobile payments using BharatQR, a “low cost, interoperable mobile acceptance solution” backed by the Indian government and developed by Mastercard, Visa and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)... More
Samsung is partnering with American Express for the launch of Samsung Pay in India, expected in the first half of 2017, according to a source quoted by Mashable... More
American Express has unveiled an Add a Card feature to its Amex bot for Messenger, allowing eligible US Consumer and Open card members to add their card and billing information for purchases on Facebook... More
Canada’s Scotiabank has replaced the NFC SIM-based mobile payments service inside its My Mobile Wallet app with a host card emulation (HCE) based solution, the bank has confirmed to NFC World... More
Apple Pay has been officially launched in Spain, with Apple developing partnerships with Banco Santander, payment giants American Express and Mastercard, retailer Carrefour and prepaid meal payment service Ticket Restaurant... More
American Express cardholders across Canada can now make NFC mobile payments using Amex Pay, a new feature added to the Amex App... More
USAA Bank has updated its digital wallet offering to enable users to add their auto insurance card and medical insurance card to the app... More
American Express cardholders will soon be able to redeem Membership Rewards points at Rite Aid, the first US pharmacy chain to formalise such a deal with the financial services company... More
Facebook has introduced a payments update to its Messenger platform that will allow US businesses who are not integrated with Stripe or PayPal to process payments within both messages and webview using tokenization technology... More
Apple Pay is now live in Japan, enabling local iPhone and Apple Watch users to make payments in stores and on public transportation services that support the widely used Sony FeliCa-based Japanese NFC payments system... More
Visa CEO Charlie Scharf will resign on 1 December 2016 to be replaced by current Visa board member, and former president of American Express, Alfred F Kelly Jr... More