The European Central Bank (ECB) is considering plans to develop a digital euro app that would enable consumers to use the proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) to make contactless and QR code-based payments and “facilitate a standard approach to connecting end users to intermediaries” including banks and other payments processors... More
College students with a physical prepaid U-Pass SmarTrip transit card can now generate, store and use a digital version of it in Apple Wallet... More
Apple users with accounts at two Russian banks will soon be able to attach an NFC payment sticker to the back of their iPhone that enables them to make contactless payments for goods and services with their smartphone... More
Customers of Qatar National Bank (QNB) can now authenticate contactless payments for purchases at merchants in Qatar using their face and without needing to use a physical payment card or smartphone... More
The Central Bank of Bangladesh is trialling an interoperable payments system that will enable customers of more than 15 major banks and payment service providers to pay for their purchases by scanning a standardized QR code at a participating merchant’s point of sale with their smartphone... More
Samsung Wallet will soon go live in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, enabling users to store and use digital payment, loyalty, membership and identity cards, digital keys, boarding passes and other credentials on their compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone... More
Penn State University in the US has launched a digital student identity card that students can store on their Apple or Android NFC smartphone or smartwatch and use to access campus buildings and to make contactless on-campus purchases... More
Passengers travelling on buses, electric buses and trolley buses in Prague in the Czech Republic can now use their physical or digital debit or credit card to purchase tickets for their journeys from onboard contactless self-service terminals rather than in advance or from the driver... More
Transit agencies in the US would benefit from introducing open loop contactless fare payment systems but widespread adoption “has remained elusive” owing to challenges that both the US public transportation and payments sectors need to address, according to a report by the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution research group... More
Passengers travelling on the Moscow Metro and Moscow Central Circle services in the Russian capital paid for a total of around 32m journeys using the network’s FacePay biometric contactless fare payment system and more than 220,000 new users registered to use FacePay during 2022, Moscow Metro reports... More
More than six in ten card payments made at the point of sale (POS) across European countries within the eurozone are now contactless (62%) compared with just over four in ten in 2019 (41%), a European Central Bank (ECB) survey reveals... More
Just over half of UK consumers believe that the growing popularity of digital payments is making physical wallets irrelevant (51%) and one in five say they do not expect to carry a wallet or purse within five years (21%), a figure that rises to 38% among millennials, according to a Mastercard survey... More
The ECB has laid out a series of design and distribution options for a digital euro that describe how the Eurosystem and supervised intermediaries such as commercial banks would operate in order to issue, distribute and settle transactions made using the proposed central bank digital currency. More
Customers of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) can now make tokenized contactless payments using a range of wearables, including a contactless payments ring and a clasp with an embedded contactless payments chip that they can attach to a watch, bracelet or other wearable accessory... More
More than eight in ten payment terminals worldwide now accept contactless payments (82%) as the number of outlets accepting card payments globally grew by 2% in 2021 to reach 88m and the number of eftpos terminals increased by 5% to reach 134m, according to research from RBR... More
The Bank of England has issued a tender inviting suppliers to design and produce a proof of concept central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallet, sample user and merchant websites and a back-end server that can be implemented as a prototype for future user testing of a digital pound in the UK... More
PARTNER NEWS: Dejamobile has added support for tips to its white-label SoftPOS solution, making it possible for merchant service providers, acquirers and payments facilitators to provide restaurants, hairdressers and other merchants with the ability to accept contactless payments that include a gratuity on a standard Android NFC phone... More
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is restricting the amount of cash that consumers and businesses can withdraw from ATMs to 20,000 naira (US$45) per day and 100,000 naira (US$225) per week... More
Passengers travelling on buses and trams in the Italian capital city of Rome will soon be able to make contactless fare payments with their physical or digital credit, debit or prepaid cards using public transportation operator Atac’s Tap & Go service... More
Gamblers visiting Resorts World Las Vegas can now register, verify their identity, join a loyalty program and upload funds to a dedicated digital wallet before they arrive at the resort, and will no longer have to confirm their identity with casino staff prior to purchasing gambling chips and placing contactless cashless bets at slot machines directly from their smartphone... More
