Poland has doubled the country’s contactless card transaction limit from 50 zloty (US$11.85) to 100 zloty ($23.71)... More
Poland doubles contactless payment transaction limit
Contactless
National Bank of Georgia recommends contactless and mobile payments
“Whenever possible, use cashless payments, contactless and mobile payments,” Georgia’s central bank has urged the country’s citizens... More
ANZ waives contactless debit card fees for small businesses in New Zealand
ANZ is to provide free contactless debit transactions “for eligible small business customers” in New Zealand until 30 June, the bank has announced... More
Ireland to raise contactless transaction limit to €50
Banks in Ireland have agreed to increase the contactless transaction limit from €30 (US$32.17) to €50 (US$53.54) “to minimise the handling of cash amid Covid-19”, The Irish Times reports... More
Saudi Arabia triples contactless card transaction limit
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) has increased the purchase limit for Atheer contactless domestic debit card transactions from SAR 100 (US$26.61) to SAR 300 (US$79.84), in a bid to reduce the spread of novel coronavirus... More
Dutch banks raise cumulative contactless payments limit to €100
Banks in the Netherlands are seeking to combat the spread of Covid-19 by increasing the maximum value of contactless transactions that a cardholder can make before needing to enter a PIN to €100 (US$107.07), up from the previous €50 (US$53.54)... More
Dual NFC and QR mobile payments service launches in Pakistan
UnionPay, Huawei and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) have launched a mobile payments service that lets owners of Huawei and Honor NFC phones use a single mobile wallet app to pay at any merchant equipped to accept either contactless or QR code payments... More
OEM Pay transaction volumes to exceed $1tn a year by 2024
Consumers will use payments services provided by smartphone makers and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make transactions valued at more than US$1tn a year by 2024, up from US$333bn in 2020, according to Juniper Research... More
Wells Fargo offers $5 credit to customers who use their smartphone to make an ATM withdrawal
Wells Fargo is running a promotion that lets selected cardholders receive a US$5 credit when they use their smartphone to make a cash withdrawal at one of the US bank’s contactless ATMs... More
Helsinki Regional Transport begins contactless payments rollout
Helsinki Regional Transport has begun the rollout of EMV contactless payments across the Finnish capital’s rail, bus and ferry network... More
HID Global adopts Cilab NFC test equipment to standardise worldwide labs
PARTNER NEWS: HID Global is using Cilab’s ci230 high-speed testing suite to reduce testing bottlenecks and standardise its NFC test results across its labs around the world — and is gaining a positive return on its investment in the equipment in less than a year, engineering director Hans-Juergen Pirch has told NFC World... More
MTA extends Omny payments to Manhattan buses
Omny contactless card payment availability is being expanded to all local buses in Manhattan this month, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has announced... More
Tesco opens cashless convenience store
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco is testing a cashless-only payments service at its High Holborn store in central London... More
M&S rolls out mobile self-checkout across London
Iconic UK retailer M&S is expanding its mobile self-checkout service to 49 stores across London, following a successful pilot at six stores that saw a Mobile Pay Go transaction being made every three seconds during lunchtime trading... More
ST gains NFC Forum certification for high performance NFC and contactless payments reader
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has received NFC Forum certification for the ST25R3916, a high performance NFC universal device and EMVCo reader that is fully compliant with ISO 14443A/B, ISO 15693, ISO 18092, Felica and NFC Forum standards... More
Contactless payments set to triple to US$6tn by 2024
Global contactless transaction values will reach nearly US$6tn in 2024, up from US$2tn today, Juniper Research forecasts... More
Virgin Voyages to issue cruise passengers with contactless wearables
Virgin Voyages is to issue contactless wristbands to its cruise passengers, enabling them “to not only unlock their cabin with ease, but also to explore all of the thrills and great experiences that Scarlet Lady and the rest of our fleet will have to offer”... More
One in fourteen UK consumers no longer carry a physical wallet
One in 14 people ‘no longer carry a wallet’ — Yahoo Finance — “One in 14 people say they no longer carry a wallet, a survey has found. Some 7% no longer take a wallet out and about with them, while a fifth (20%) said that if they were to look in their wallet it would not contain any cash.”
Royal Australian Mint to phase out silver coins?
Royal Australian Mint expects lowly silver coins to be phased out amid rise of contactless payments — ABC Radio Melbourne — “Royal Australian Mint chief executive Ross MacDiarmid said demand for coinage had dropped by about 55% in the last five years, and most of that had been for silver coins… Rising inflation, coupled with the growth of online and contactless payments, are rendering the lowly silvers obsolete… Much like the old 1 and 2c coins, phased out in the 1990s, Mr MacDiarmid expected the mint to eventually stop producing 5 and 10c coins.”
Worldline to acquire Ingenico for €7.8bn
Worldline to acquire Ingenico — Worldline — “This transaction would combine two premier companies to create the world’s number four player in payment services with circa 20,000 employees in approximately 50 countries… Upon closing, the new combined group would offer best-in-class payment services to nearly 1m merchants and 1,200 financial institutions.”