Customers of UK neobank Monzo can now create virtual debit cards for specific kinds of expenditure that are linked directly to funds they have set aside for that purpose rather than to their main bank account... More
Eight in ten (80%) in-person contactless payments made from digital wallets using Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) debit and credit cards are made by tapping an Apple device, the bank has told a government inquiry into mobile payments and digital financial services... More
Supermarket chain Aldi is trialling its first checkout-free store in London using technology that will enable customers to gain access to the store by scanning a smartphone app, select the products they want to purchase and then leave without needing to pay at a till... More
Apple Card holders can now opt to secure their card with a rotating three-digit security code that changes periodically by enabling an advanced fraud protection feature integrated in the iOS 15 update on their iPhone or iPad... More
Passengers using buses, trains and streetcars operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of the US state of Texas can now make contactless fare payments with their debit or credit card or from a digital wallet on their NFC-enabled mobile device... More
Just over two-thirds of consumers globally (67%) now expect bricks-and-mortar retail stores to accept contactless payments and just under half (44%) wouldn’t shop at a store that only offers payment methods that require contact with a cashier or shared device, a survey of merchants and consumers in nine countries around the world has found... More
Chinese e-commerce platform Meituan is to enable customers of its bicycle hire service to pay for their rides with the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) while offline using an NFC-enabled digital yuan hard wallet... More
A “growing number” of Europeans would support the creation of national digital currencies with the specific aim of asserting “some monetary independence” from the European Union, according to a survey commissioned by Euronews... More
Google Pay is preparing to launch in Israel by the end of 2021, following a deal reached by Israeli credit card company Isracard with Google to support payments made with its card via the mobile wallet, local media outlets report... More
Nearly two in three consumers in the UK (62%) would now prefer to use their payment card through a mobile wallet compared with 31% last year, according to a survey commissioned by Samsung Pay... More
More than three in four cashless payments made in Germany (77%), Austria (80%) and Switzerland (82%) are now contactless — a rise of more than 35 percentage points from an average of 40% across the three countries in June 2019, according to figures published by Nordic payments processor Nets... More
Google Pay has officially launched its app for owners of both Android smartphones and Wear OS smartwatches in Austria. Austrian customers of neobanks and fintechs including Curve, Monese, N26, Revolut and Viva Wallet have been able to use Google Pay via their mobile banking app since November 2020. More
Moscow Metro is to enable passengers travelling on all the Russian capital’s metro lines to make contactless payments for their fare at station turnstiles using its FacePay biometric ticketing system... More
Three quarters of German consumers (74%) want to be able to make digital payments at all shops, restaurants and other retail outlets, with that percentage rising to 87% among 18- to 29-year-olds, according to a survey by the Bitkom digital association... More
Consumers in Dubai can now use an app to gain access to Majid al Futtaim’s Carrefour City+ store in the Mall of the Emirates, select the products they want to purchase without needing to scan them and pay for them on their mobile phone without interacting with staff or using a checkout... More
The total number of digital ticketing transactions worldwide will increase by 62% from 20.8bn in 2021 to 33.8bn in 2023, with bus and metro ticketing accounting for one in three (33%) of those transactions, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More
The number of debit transactions completed using a mobile wallet in the US rose by 51% year-on-year to approximately 2bn in 2020, with “a noteworthy” 92% of those transactions being made with Apple Pay and just 5% with Google Pay and 3% with Samsung Pay, according to research published in the 2021 Debit Issuer Study... More
San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) in the US state of California is rolling out an account-based contactless ticketing system that will let passengers pay their public transit fares with a physical or digital transit card and have those fares capped to a maximum of the price of a daily or monthly pass... More
Passengers on buses, trams and funicular railway services in the northern Italian city of Bergamo can now make contactless payments for their fares using their credit or debit card or from a digital wallet on their NFC-enabled mobile device... More
Disruption in global chip supply is threatening the issuance of up to 1bn payment cards over the next 18 months, with 347m cards at risk of not being issued in the second half of 2021 and up to 740m in 2022 because of “significant chip shortages”, according to an ABI Research forecast... More