The number of American consumers using their smartphone to make in-store mobile payments will reach 101.2 million in 2021 following a 29% increase in usage during 2020, according to an eMarketer forecast... More
Cashless
East Caribbean Central Bank launches digital currency
Residents of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Kitts and Nevis can now pay for goods and services and make peer-to-peer money transfers from their smartphones using the East Caribbean Central Bank’s DCash central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Chinese banks roll out digital yuan wallets
Customers of all six state-owned Chinese banks can now apply for test versions of the banks’ digital yuan wallets as the country rolls out the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot programme in the city of Changsha... More
GSMA reports ‘dramatic acceleration’ in mobile money transactions
The number of registered mobile money accounts globally grew by 13% in 2020 to reach a total of more than 1.2bn, according to research by the GSMA... More
Thai and Vietnamese central banks roll out cross-border QR payments
The Bank of Thailand and the State Bank of Vietnam have launched an interoperable cross-border payments system that will enable Thai visitors to Vietnam and Vietnamese visitors to Thailand to make QR code-based payments for goods and services using their mobile banking app... More
Afterpay launches virtual card for ‘buy now, pay later’ in-store purchases
Consumers in Australia can now make payments for in-store purchases using a digital card issued by buy now, pay later (BNPL) service Afterpay that lets them automatically pay for their purchases in four equal instalments... More
Visa settles first transaction in digital currency
Visa has become the first major payments network to settle a transaction with an issuing or acquiring partner by exchanging funds in digital currency rather than in traditional fiat currency... More
Apple Pay goes live in South Africa
Apple Pay has rolled out in South Africa with support for Visa cards issued by Absa and Discovery Bank and for Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards issued by Nedbank... More
Sydney integrates digital Opal card with rideshare services
Commuters in Sydney, Australia, will soon be able to use a digital version of their Opal transit card to pay for taxi fares and rideshare services and earn credit towards the cost of public transportation services they then transfer to... More
Delhi Metro lets passengers top up their transit cards at fare gates
Passengers travelling on Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) services in India can now top up their contactless AutoPe DMRC transit cards at the network’s automatic fare collection gates... More
Apple to use iris biometrics for virtual reality payments?
Apple may incorporate iris scanning functionality in a forthcoming head-mounted display (HMD) mixed-reality headset that will enable users to authenticate their identity when using Apple Pay to make payments via the “mostly virtual reality device”, according to MacRumors... More
Central Maryland RTA adds mobile ticketing, fare capping and free transfers
Passengers using buses operated by the Regional Transportation Agency of Central Maryland can now use their credit card to purchase and store digital bus tickets on their Android or iOS smartphone... More
EU approves plans for instant cross-border payments
The European Council has endorsed plans to introduce a fully integrated retail payment system that will enable instant cross-border payments and financial transfers throughout the European Union... More
Abu Dhabi theme parks roll out face recognition for access and payments
Visitors to Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island can now use their face to gain access to the resort island’s Ferrari World, Yas Waterworld and Warner Bros World theme parks and to make contactless payments at retail and dining outlets that support its face recognition technology... More
Global OEM Pay transactions to exceed US$1tn in 2022
The total value of contactless transactions made using payment services provided by smartphone and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will reach more than US$1tn in 2022, a rise of 377% on 2019, Kaleido Intelligence predicts... More
WSJ video shows China’s digital yuan in action in stores
The Wall Street Journal has posted a video report showing Chinese consumers in the city of Chengdu using the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to make in-store NFC and QR code payments from a digital yuan wallet on their mobile phone... More
Alpha Bank upgrades NFC mobile wallet with latest tokenization innovations
PARTNER NEWS: Greece’s Alpha Bank has launched a new version of its myAlpha NFC payments wallet that makes use of Antelop Solutions’ NFC white label SDK to add support for the latest Visa VTS and Mastercard MDES tokenization innovations... More
Jamaica to launch central bank digital currency in 2022
Jamaica is to pilot a central bank digital currency (CBDC) over the course of this year and begin rolling it out in 2022, the country’s minister of finance Nigel Clarke has revealed during a budget speech... More
Mercedes rolls out contactless in-vehicle fuel payments in Germany
Mercedes drivers in Germany can now make contactless in-car payments for fuel directly from their Mercedes me app or via their vehicle’s infotainment system using the luxury car maker’s new Fuel & Pay digital payments service... More
Forecast: OEM Pays to drive more than 180% growth in global tokenization revenue by 2025
Total global revenue from tokenization provisioning and management for mobile payments will exceed US$53bn in 2025, an increase of more than 180% from US$18bn in 2020, according to a forecast by Juniper Research... More