More than four-fifths of the world’s central banks (86%) are engaged in “some form of work” on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), up from “about one third” in 2019, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey... More
Nearly one in two Americans (46%) are most likely or definitely interested in mobile payment options for public transit ticketing “for a safer mass transit journey”, a survey of consumers in 28 countries around the world has found... More
Nine in ten card payments made in UK stores during 2020 (88.6%) were contactless and the average contactless user made 141 transactions worth a total of £1,640 (US$2,241) over the course of the year, according to Barclaycard... More
A third of Indian households across a range of income groups now use digital payment methods, but “this can easily go up to 50% given high desire to use,” research from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) reveals... More
Owners of Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 smartphones in the USA will not be able to make payments using Samsung Pay’s magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology... More
The number of people using QR code payment services globally will rise from 1.5 billion in 2020 to more than 2.2 billion in 2025, representing close to one in three (29%) of all the world’s mobile phone users, Juniper Research predicts... More
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has expanded its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to include a contactless ‘hard wallet’ and NFC wearables that enable consumers to make in-store and transit fare payments with their digital yuan... More
The UK could increase the limit for contactless transactions from £45 (US$61) to £100 (US$136), according to reports in the British press... More
The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has completed the rollout of its Omny contactless fare payment system across the whole of the city, enabling passengers to pay for their tickets with their contactless bank card or mobile wallet at all 472 subway stations and on 5,800 buses across the city... More
As many as 2.5m biometric payment cards will be issued during 2021, according to an ABI Research forecast, with more than 20 biometric payment card pilots already underway across the globe... More
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is to raise the limit for contactless card transactions from Rs2,000 (US$27) to Rs5,000 ($67.67) from 1 January 2021, an increase of 150%... More
Owners of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the UAE can now accept contactless payments on standard Android NFC smartphones, with no need for additional hardware... More
The proportion of in-store purchases made using contactless cards in the Nordic countries has risen from 57% in January this year to 75% in late October, an increase “in part driven by concerns around the potential spread of Covid-19,” regional payments processor Nets reports... More
Passengers using Matatu minibus services across the Kenyan capital of Nairobi can now make contactless payments for their journeys from their M-Pesa mobile wallet... More
Some 70% of Swedish consumers would be interested in having a biometric payment card so they can make high-value transactions without having to touch a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, a new survey reveals — and 59% would be willing to pay a monthly fee for one... More
The number of outlets worldwide accepting card payments will reach nearly 100m by the end of 2025, an increase driven by government initiatives to promote cashless payments and by an acceleration in the move to contactless payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, research from RBR predicts... More
The number of contactless transactions made by some 140 million JCB cardholders across 24 markets increased by more than 30% between July 2019 and July this year, the Tokyo-based payments network reports in a new white paper... More
Standard Bank is supporting the mass rollout of contactless cards across Africa as the financial services group reports an accelerated increase in the use of tap and pay across the continent... More
More than half (53%) of today’s shoppers have used a mobile contactless payment option for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a survey by USA-based Inmar Intelligence... More
The number of iPhone users globally that have activated Apple Pay has grown by 66m over the past year, from 441m in September 2019 to 507m in September 2020, according to a study published by Loup Ventures... More