Amazon India has been granted a payment license by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate its own prepaid wallet in the country... More
Digital payments
Mastercard rolls out Messenger payment bots with US retailers
Subway, FreshDirect and The Cheesecake Factory have begun rolling out payment bots for Facebook Messenger across the US, allowing their customers to secure and complete payments using Mastercard’s Masterpass digital payment platform without having to leave the instant messaging service. More
Apple Pay in-store adoption is “growing nicely”
Apple Pay adoption at the point of sale is “growing nicely” and is “in-line with growth among other digital payment players” such as Google and Samsung, long-time Apple analyst Gene Munster reveals... More
Mahindra Comviva adds offers and promotions to mobile money platform
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva is making it possible for mobile money operators to increase user engagement with the addition of a new service that enables relevant offers and promotions to be delivered automatically to users’ mobile devices... More
Google Home owners get voice commands for grocery shopping
Owners of the Google Home speaker powered by Google Assistant can now buy groceries using voice commands... More
Samsung to bring Mini version of Samsung Pay to all Android handsets
Samsung is to launch a pared-down version of Samsung Pay which will make the mobile payments service available on all Android handsets... More
Samsung Pay to get AI assistant?
Samsung is to add a virtual assistant called Bixby to Samsung Pay, a Samsung Pay Beta page seen by Galaxy Club reveals... More
Korean central bank to put small change on cards
The Bank of Korea (BOK) is to pilot a service that allows merchants to give customers change in the form of a top-up onto a prepaid card instead of coins... More
Japanese financial service providers begin facial recognition payment trials
Employees of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Card have begun a facial recognition service trial to authenticate purchases, with payments being deducted from their wage at the end of the month... More
Apple rejects Samsung Pay Mini on iOS
Apple has rejected the registration of the Samsung Pay Mini online payments app onto its app store, according to ET News... More
India Reserve Bank drops two-factor authentication
The Reserve Bank of India has removed two-factor authentication — involving the use of one-time passwords sent to mobile phones — for online card transactions up to Rs 2,000 (US$29), Live Mint reports... More
Ant Financial invests in Ascend Money
Alipay parent company Ant Financial is investing an undisclosed sum into Thai online payment provider Ascend Money... More
US smartphone owners switch to mobile payments
More than half of smartphone owners in the US have used their mobile phone to pay for goods and services in-store and online, Mercator Advisory Group says... More
Alipay heads to Australia with Commonwealth Bank
Alipay has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Commonwealth Bank of Australia to enable in-store and online payments for Chinese tourists in Australia... More
Apple unveils new MacBook Pro with Touch ID integration for Apple Pay payments
Apple has unveiled a new version of its MacBook Pro, including Touch ID to allow owners to make secure payments with Apple Pay from their laptop, as well as unlocking the machine and switching user accounts... More
Nine out of 10 commercial banks exploring blockchain for payments, survey finds
Nine out of 10 US, European and Canadian commercial banks are exploring the use of blockchain technology for payments, according to a survey of 32 top banking professionals by Accenture... More
PBoC reports on China mobile payments market
The number of mobile payments made in China have grown 10% year on year since 2013, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBoC)... More
Frost Bank joins ClearXChange
US financial institution Frost Bank has joined Early Warning’s bank-led digital payments network ClearXChange... More
White paper lays out best practices for banks launching HCE payments
A 19-page white paper designed to help banks understand the key concepts of host card emulation (HCE) and tokenization technology and the best practices for evaluating and deploying HCE-based payment services is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Mastercard reports on Masterpass uptake
Digital payments platform Masterpass has been available to 200m consumers in Europe as of the end of June 2016... More