Customers of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) with a compatible smartphone can now add their UnionPay International (UPI) virtual card to a Huawei Pay digital wallet and use it to make NFC or QR code-enabled mobile payments... More
Tencent-backed WeBank and Ant-backed MyBank are conducting “preliminary work under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)” in order to integrate the digital yuan wallet into their payment and banking services, according to a China Securities report... More
Passengers using public transport across the Swedish capital of Stockholm can now make tokenized contactless payments for single adult fares on metro, rail, bus, tram and boat services by tapping their debit or credit card or smartphone at a ticket reader... More
Apple Pay has rolled out in Mexico, with support for American Express and for Mastercards issued by the country’s Banorte and Citibanamex banks... More
Passengers on public transportation services in the San Francisco Bay Area of the USA will soon be able to upload their Clipper transit card to their Apple Pay or Google Pay mobile wallet and pay for their fares with their smartphone or smart watch... More
Russian mobile network operators Beeline and MegaFon are looking to develop digital wallets for smartphones and other mobile devices that will support the central bank digital currency (CBDC) which is being developed by The Central Bank of Russia (CBR)... More
Citizens of the Bahamas can now pay for goods and services using a prepaid card that supports the country’s Sand Dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Google Pay users can now pay for parking in more than 400 cities across the USA and for public transport fares with participating transit authorities globally from directly within Google Maps... More
Chinese consumers taking part in the large-scale testing of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Beijing over the Chinese New Year period are trialling a biometric ‘hard wallet’ card developed by the Postal Savings Bank of China... More
The People’s Bank of China has launched the first large-scale giveaway of the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be held in Beijing and has distributed 10m digital yuan (US$1.55m) to 50,000 participants in a ‘red envelope’ lottery... More
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced plans to introduce NFC contactless payments in the country, enabling consumers to upload their bank card information to their mobile phone and use their device to make in-store purchases at the point of sale... More
US supermarket chain Kroger is to pilot its first all self-checkout grocery store in Dallas, Texas, enabling customers to scan and pay for their purchases without needing to go through a cashier-staffed checkout lane... More
More than four-fifths of the world’s central banks (86%) are engaged in “some form of work” on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), up from “about one third” in 2019, according to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey... More
At least eight major banks, including Hong Kong-based China CITIC Bank, have now introduced or are in the process of introducing digital wallets that support China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to local media reports... More
Mastercard has announced new specifications for contactless payments that will offer quantum-resistant security via “next-generation algorithms and cryptographic key strengths”, enhanced privacy at the checkout and “help ensure any device truly can be a payment device”... More
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to follow its pilots of NFC-based contactless digital currency payments with the distribution of a further 20m digital yuan (US$3.1m) in a third ‘red envelope’ lottery to be held in the city of Shenzhen... More
The total value of digital wallet transactions globally will reach more than US$10tn in 2025, according to Juniper Research, “with over 34% of mobile handsets set to use contactless payments in 2025, up from 11% in 2020.”... More
A coalition of technology and healthcare providers in the US has launched an initiative to develop a solution that will enable individuals to store and access their Covid-19 vaccination records in their digital wallet “in a secure, verifiable and privacy preserving way”... More
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has expanded its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to include a contactless ‘hard wallet’ and NFC wearables that enable consumers to make in-store and transit fare payments with their digital yuan... More
Public transport users in Dubai can now use a Huawei NFC smartphone to pay for tickets on metro, tram, waterbus and other transit services operated by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) using a digital version of the Nol transit card... More
