Consumers in the city of Shenzhen are being offered the opportunity to win one of 50,000 ‘red envelopes’ containing 200 digital yuan (US$29.65) that they can spend at any of more than 3,000 retail outlets in the city that now accept China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
PARTNER NEWS: Employers can now provide their staff with a wearable wristband that uses continuous biometric authentication to enable them to securely gain hands-free access to buildings, devices and computer networks throughout the working day... More
Customers of Volksbank Raiffeisenbank in Germany are taking part in the pilot of a self-service terminal designed to drive new revenue streams by making a wide range of additional services available in bank branches... More
Citizens using Singapore’s SingPass national digital ID system can now use face verification to securely authenticate themselves when accessing a growing range of government and commercial services on their mobile phone, computer or in government agency kiosks... More
Customers shopping at two Amazon Go outlets in Seattle, USA, can now gain access to the convenience stores and pay for their purchases by simply placing their palm over a contactless palm scanning device installed at the entrance... More
Customers at a coffee shop in Budapest, Hungary, and a number of small city-centre retailers in Guadalajara, Spain, are piloting a biometric payment service which allows them to make payments at the point of sale using their face and palm without needing a card, smartphone or other mobile device... More
Bus passengers in Japan are taking part in a pilot of self-driving buses equipped with facial recognition technology which enables them to pay for their tickets as they board using a ‘face pass’ system... More
GlobalPlatform has released a new specification designed to simplify the integration of strong customer authentication (SCA) for payments, banking, transport and identity applications... More
Dutch bank ING and supermarket giant Albert Heijn are to pilot a tokenized payments service which enables customers to pay for online purchases from their bank accounts without needing to provide retailers with account credentials... More
Ukraine’s PrivatBank has begun to roll out biometric POS terminals for its facial recognition payments service FacePay24... More
Retail outlets and restaurants in the California city of Pasadena have adopted a hands-free payments service which enables consumers to make purchases and earn loyalty rewards using facial recognition technology... More
Tucano Coffee has installed a payments system that enables customers to make contact-free payments using face biometrics at its Afi Park coffee shop in Bucharest, Romania... More
The Alchemist, a busy cocktail bar and restaurant in the UK city of Manchester, is to roll out a new service that uses finger vein biometrics to provide a combined payments, age verification and permission-based contact tracing service that removes the need for customers to carry a physical ID card... More
The new Mercedes S-Class will come with fingerprint, voice and optional face biometrics integrated into its infotainment system, enabling “verification of digital payment processes from the vehicle”, the luxury car maker has announced... More
A new face verification ticketing system has been introduced in the city of Guiyang, capital of China’s Guizhou province, enabling public transportation users to board buses and subway services without having to show their ticket or tap a card or smartphone... More
BNP Paribas is to begin issuing payment cards with a built-in fingerprint sensor to its Premier and Gold cardholders later this year, the French bank has announced... More
Rail passengers using Eurostar services to travel between London and continental Europe are set to be the first to use a new face verification system to board their train “without showing a ticket or passport”... More
Spain’s CaixaBank is to deploy ATMs equipped with facial recognition technology nationwide “with the goal of offering a better user experience and greater security in transactions, particularly in the context of Covid-19”... More
Google is piloting a new service that lets Google Assistant users confirm payment for a purchase with just their voice... More
An additional 110m contactless payment cards will be issued in 2020 compared with pre-Covid-19 forecast expectations, ABI Research predicts, bringing the total in circulation to more than 2bn... More