Android Pay has signed up “millions” of users since its launch in the US in September 2015, Google’s Sridhar Ramaswamy has told attendees during his keynote at Money20/20. He also announced that single tap loyalty rewards are set to go live at NFC-enabled Coke vending machines in the next “few weeks”. More
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Four in ten Apple Pay users make a mobile payment once a week
More than seventy million US consumers (71.5m) have now made a mobile payment in a store or online, up from 61m in 2014, research by Mercator Advisory Group has found. Overall, 42% of all smartphone owners have made a mobile payment and half of those do so at least once a week. More
Microsoft to launch mobile payments?
Microsoft is looking to relaunch Windows Wallet, a mobile payments app that stores credit cards and coupons for in-store and online payments through Windows devices, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore has told The Verge... More
Apple Pay accounts for 68% of all in-store mobile payments in US
Apple Pay is used for more than two thirds (68%) of all in-store mobile payments in the US, research from Accenture reveals, and the number of North Americans aware of mobile payments has increased by nearly 10 percentage points since last year, reaching 52%... More
MCX expands CurrentC beta to 150 stores
US retailer-led consortium MCX is expanding its CurrentC mobile wallet pilot to further locations across Columbus, Ohio, making it available for use in nearly 150 stores... More
Pizza Hut installs Bluetooth beacons at 1,471 locations in China
Some 1,471 Pizza Hut restaurants in mainland China have installed Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons from Sensoro to send out coupons, WeChat movie ticket prizes, special offers and discounts directly to customers’ smartphones... More
Suretap reports 180,000 NFC wallet users
Some 180,000 Canadians have now installed the Suretap NFC mobile wallet and the average value per transaction has increased 22% month over month since its launch in June 2015, the company has revealed... More
MCX adds offers and discounts to CurrentC mobile wallet
US retailer-led consortium MCX has announced a partnership with promotions management and processing provider Inmar to bring digital promotions from US brands to its yet-to-launch mobile wallet platform CurrentC... More
Migros launches mobile payments
Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain Migros has launched a mobile payments service first mooted in January, allowing customers to make purchases using a Migros app linked to their Migros Bank account or credit card... More
SmarTone unveils Kiss mobile marketing platform with NFC payments and Bluetooth beacons
Hong Kong mobile network operator SmarTone has unveiled Kissco, an end-to-end mobile marketing platform incorporating Kiss Pay, a mobile payments service based on NFC and ultrasound technology, a Kiss Dollars loyalty program and Kiss Beacons to allow retailers to send out offers and promotions directly to customers’ smartphones from their stores... More
Flint adds Apple Wallet support
Mobile payment provider Flint has added a new feature to its platform that lets its business users create coupons and distribute them to Apple Wallet users... More
Target tests Bluetooth beacons in 50 US stores
US retail giant Target has begun testing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in 50 stores nationwide to send deals and recommendations on nearby products directly to a shopper’s smartphone running the retailer’s iOS mobile app... More
Toys R Us app gets Snap-to-Coupon
Toys R Us has added a feature in its mobile app that lets shoppers take a photograph of any coupon they see in a newspaper, catalogue or on a receipt to instantly generate a mobile-optimized version that can be stored inside the app... More
Alipay 9 launches with support for Koubei merchant payments and P2P transfers
Ant Financial has released a new version of its Alipay app for iOS and Android, adding new Friends and Merchants tabs that provide support for peer-to-peer payments and for Koubei, the US$1bn mobile commerce joint venture between Ant Financial and Alibaba that was announced last month. More
“Highly interested” Canadians ready for mobile payments
Some 14% of Canadian consumers say they are highly interested in making in-store mobile payments and 11% are also interested in using a wearable device such as a smartwatch to do so, research from payment services supplier Tsys has revealed... More
Las Vegas gets park and reward meters
Drivers in Las Vegas can pick up offers from local businesses via 16 interactive on-street parking meters... More
Canadian carriers sign up for independent Suretap platform
Canadian carrier Rogers has spun off its Suretap NFC mobile wallet service as a separate company, with the brand now operating independently and open to other carriers... More
SEQR mobile payments to launch in US
Mobile payment solution SEQR, developed by Swedish m-commerce software firm Seamless, is to launch in the US, making it the eleventh country where the system is available... More
Google demonstrates how Android Pay will work
Google has demonstrated how its Android Pay mobile payments service will work for making in-store and in-app purchases, for payments made through a banking partner mobile app, and how users will be able to pay for items such as a Coca-Cola from a vending machine using just the points stored in a customer loyalty account. More
Postbank begins HCE pilot in Germany with Worldline
Employees of Germany’s Postbank have begun piloting a mobile payment service based on host card emulation (HCE) that makes use of tokenization to allow NFC payments to be made at any Visa payWave terminal... More