Customers of Belgium’s KBC bank can now add their debit card to their choice of a range of wearables and then use their new ring, watch, keyring or bracelet to make payments at any merchant equipped to accept contactless payments... More
Google is working on “a major overhaul” of Google Pay that will see the service expanding into “a one-stop portal for commerce”, The Information reports... More
Visa has filed an application for a patent that sets out a way for a central bank to take fiat money that is currently in circulation, digitize it, remove the converted physical currency from circulation and then enable consumers and merchants to conduct transactions using a digital wallet “stored on a chip of a smartcard or a secure element of a user device”... More
“While the full impact of Covid-19 on tap to pay adoption across the world is yet to be fully seen, early indications highlight a shift in consumer spend toward every day, essential segments where contactless usage is high, such as grocery and pharmacy,” Visa says... More
“We have seen over 40% growth in contactless transactions worldwide in the first quarter,” Mastercard president Michael Miebach has revealed, with “more than half of new tappers saying they will continue to use contactless once this pandemic is over.”... More
Impact of Covid-19 on spending behaviour revealed as more Irish consumers using contactless and digital wallets — AIB — “Digital wallet (Apple Pay and Google Pay) spend now accounts for 37% of all in-store transactions by those who are under 25… Contactless using a debit card is the most popular choice of in-store payment method among all age cohorts, except those under 25 where it accounts for 28% of spend.”
Starbucks, McDonald’s among 19 firms to test China’s digital yuan — Coindesk — “Starbucks and McDonald’s are reportedly among 19 restaurants and retail shops that will be involved in testing China’s central bank digital currency in the country’s Xiong’An new district, a local news outlet reported on Thursday, citing a government document. The move signals China’s wider efforts to test the digital currency project, with state-owned commercial banks already developing wallet applications for the digital yuan, also known as DC/EP.”
Internal closed pilot tests of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) developed by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) are to be conducted in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an New District, Chengdu, and at Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics locations, China’s central bank has revealed... More
Digital wallet transactions grew 17% in March 2020, outpacing the average monthly compound growth rate of 6.7% over the past six months, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) reports... More
An analysis of the global payments industry by McKinsey & Company predicts that Covid-19 will result in a loss of revenues of between US$165bn and US$210bn in 2020 — and sets out “ten fundamental changes to the payments ecosystem that will help all of us find a new normal.” More
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
Digital wallets will be used to pay for ecommerce transactions valued at more than US$3tn a year by 2023, a new study has found... More
Sweden’s central bank The Riksbank has begun testing a digital currency designed to enable consumers to store an electronic version of the Swedish krona in a digital wallet and make payments, deposits and withdrawals using a mobile app... More
‘Low KYC’ norm to help mobile wallets retain their customers — Economic Times — “In a move set to bring relief to scores of mobile wallet firms such as Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and their several million users, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will allow wallet service providers to continue operating their millions of non-compliant know-your-customer (KYC) accounts which earlier faced cancellation… An estimated over 200m mobile wallets ran the risk of being cancelled by the regulators, once the deadline to upgrade their non-compliant accounts to ‘full KYC’ accounts expires on February 29.”
Rethinking Payment Request for iOS Chrome — Google — “The best way to enable more seamless and secure payments on the web is to enable an interoperable ecosystem, where digital wallets can bring their best experience to the web. This means shifting focus to the Payment Handler API, which is an emerging W3C standard that allows third party payment handlers, which can be either native mobile apps or progressive web apps, to integrate with the browser to handle Payment Requests… This shift in focus means that we will eventually sunset Chrome’s built-in ‘basic-card’ payment handler.”
Public transportation users in Sydney, Australia, are now using their contactless debit card, credit card or linked device to make 1.5m journeys a week, Transport for NSW has revealed... More
Samsung has teamed up with financial services comparison site Finder to add a credit card shopping feature to Samsung Pay, “enabling everyday Australians to discover compelling credit card offers from participating financial institutions” from within its mobile wallet... More
Public transportation operator First Group has begun a pilot of a new mobile ticketing service that uses host card emulation (HCE) to let customers with an Android NFC phone purchase a bus ticket, provision it to Google Pay and then use their smartphone to tap an on-board contactless reader when they board a bus... More
Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money — CNBC — “The company announced on Monday the formation of a new division called Uber Money to house its efforts, which include a digital wallet and upgraded debit and credit cards. The emphasis, at first, will be expanding Uber’s efforts to give its four million-plus drivers and couriers around the world access to a mobile bank account so they can get paid after each ride. Uber could one day offer a bank account to consumers on its platform, according to Uber Money head Peter Hazlehurst.”
Samsung’s NFC phone-based contactless payments acceptance service is now live in Canada and is to be introduced globally “starting in 2020”, the company has announced... More