Paytm plans $1 billion top-up to cash in on note ban success — Times of India — “Sharma said they were looking at a three-pronged strategy to double the number of users in the coming year by converting Paytm users to its payments bank, tap into non-wallet users through UPI and sell financial products from next year. ‘Long ago, we realised that standalone payments as a business is an orphan and thus we are building a bouquet of products,’ Sharma said.”
Digital wallet
Samsung Pay adds Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Interac debit options in Canada
Samsung Pay expands in Canada with new partners — Samsung Electronics Canada — “Following a successful introduction with CIBC in the Canadian market, Samsung remains committed to enhancing Samsung Pay and making it a holistic digital wallet extending beyond credit cards with the introduction of debit cards and new partners including Interac Debit, Scotiabank, American Express Canada, ATB Financial, Visa Canada and Mastercard. In addition, Samsung Pay will be made available soon to Tangerine and Peoples Card Services customers.”
Facebook’s WhatsApp to offer in-chat payments in India
WhatsApp in-chat payments feature is bad news for digital wallets, payment companies in India — FactorDaily — “Instant messenger WhatsApp is readying an intuitive in-chat payments feature, ahead of a likely December launch in India… This will be the first time that WhatsApp is introducing the payments feature anywhere in the world… The Facebook-owned company has partnered with three banks – State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, three of India’s biggest banks, to launch the feature, FactorDaily has also learned.”
Australian banks form digital payments joint venture
NAB, Westpac and CBA team up with new payments app, Beem — The Sydney Morning Herald — “Three of the country’s banking giants are joining forces to allow instant payments between people or to small businesses via a smartphone, with plans to ultimately roll out a cross-industry ‘digital wallet’… The app will be the first service offered by a new digital payments joint venture that has been formed between CBA, NAB and Westpac… ANZ is not part of the joint venture but it has been involved in some of the discussions with rivals, and it may sign up in the future.”
PayPal to turn Venmo P2P payments app into ‘ubiquitous digital wallet’
Venmo now accepted at millions of retailers — PayPal — “Starting this week, Venmo customers can use their Venmo account to shop and make purchases on their mobile phone at more than two million US retailers, almost everywhere PayPal is accepted… Our vision for Venmo is to not only be the go-to app for payments between friends, but also a ubiquitous digital wallet that helps consumers spend wherever and however they want to pay, regardless of device.”
Mastercard and PayPal form global digital wallet partnership
Mastercard and PayPal expand digital partnership globally — Mastercard — “Mastercard will be presented as a clear and equal payment option within the PayPal Wallet, making Mastercard and their issuers easily identifiable to the consumer when transacting… PayPal will have the opportunity to expand its presence at the point of sale by utilizing tokenization services from Mastercard, allowing consumers to use their tokenized Mastercard in their PayPal Wallet to make in-store purchases.”
Supermarket giant Carrefour launches mobile wallet in China
Carrefour unveils digital wallet, teams up with China UnionPay to develop mobile payment ecosystem — Yicai Global — “Europe’s largest retailer, France-based Carrefour SA, has introduced its own mobile wallet dubbed CarrefourPay and joined hands with China UnionPay, a bankcard provider, to build a mobile payment ecosphere… The cross-industry partnership will see both firms working together in such areas as general payment platforms, membership systems, secure payments, big data analysis and smart retail.”
Ant Financial signs mobile wallet joint venture deal in Hong Kong
CK Hutchison and Ant Financial form strategic partnership to provide digital financial inclusive services in Hong Kong — CK Hutchison — “The two companies will form a joint venture to offer a consumer-oriented digital wallet under the ‘AlipayHK’ brand… CK Hutchison Group and its affiliated companies’ consumer networks have over 124m retail loyalty members and over 123m telecom and 35m utility customers… The joint venture is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, subject to regulatory approval.”
UBS backs Car eWallet project that lets vehicles make their own payments
Secure payments ‘on the go’ with blockchain technology from ZF, UBS and IBM — IBM — “Auto manufacturers, technology companies, suppliers and mobility service providers are all driving the development of driverless cars. To support autonomous driving, however, these vehicles require a digital agent that can independently carry out tasks and authorize payments without the owner or user having to be active themselves.”
Google to enter mobile payments market in India
Google to launch payment app ‘Tez’ in India — The Ken — “Google is expected to partner ‘several large private banks in India’ for its payment product, Tez. Besides its own UPI-based service, Google is expected to integrate third-party payment wallets such as Paytm and MobiKwik among others on its platform.”
EMVCo updates tokenization specification
Payments standards body EMVCo has updated its Payment Tokenisation Technical Framework to introduce the new roles of ‘token programme’ and ‘token user’, refine the roles of ‘token service provider’ and ‘token requestor’ and detail “their interrelationships within the global payments environment.”... More
Tesco unveils Tesco Pay+
Tesco unveils Tesco Pay+ — Tesco — “PayQwiq, the digital wallet app, is to be re-launched as Tesco Pay+… The journey of our digital wallet has been an exciting one and we’ve learned a great deal about our customers and how they shop in that time. We believe that Tesco Pay+ is going to help the customer journey, offering greater little helps, and we’re looking forward to revealing more in a few weeks’ time.”
Burger King has launched its own cryptocurrency in Russia called WhopperCoin
Burger King has launched its own cryptocurrency in Russia called WhopperCoin — CNBC — “With each purchase of the burger chain’s signature Whopper sandwich, customers can receive WhopperCoin tokens via a digital wallet… WhopperCoin transactions will be powered by Ethereum rival Waves’ distributed ledger network. The blockchain platform allows users to issue and transfer custom blockchain tokens, and to trade them on an integrated peer-to-peer exchange.”
Rambus lays out the benefits of retailer-led digital wallets
An eight-page white paper that lays out how merchants can reduce costs and increase margins, enhance the in-store experience, improve payment security and mitigate risk by deploying their own digital wallets is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Rambus explores five key reasons retailers should have a mobile wallet
PARTNER NEWS: An 11-page white paper exploring five key reasons that retailers should deploy their own branded mobile wallet service is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
What’s New in Payments 2: Special report sets out the latest thinking on the future of payments — free of charge
Payments experts from the European Banking Authority, Yandex, Vodafone, Orange, Dejamobile and Wirecard are among eight contributors to What’s New in Payments: Volume Two, a 76-page special report on the future of payments which is now available to download free of charge from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Citi Pay launches in the US
Citi Pay launches in the US — Citi — “Online and in-app purchases will be enabled through Citi’s integration of Masterpass… For Android users, the digital wallet also enables Citi cardholders to make in-store purchases by tapping their Android mobile devices at any NFC-enabled point-of-sale terminal… In 2016, Citi Pay launched in Singapore, Australia and Mexico with tap and pay capabilities.”
East London gets local currency built on the blockchain
Residents across East London can now make mobile payments at small businesses with a local currency launched by Tel-Aviv-based digital wallet provider Colu which makes use of blockchain technology... More
Google introduces buy button in search results
Google introduces buy button in search results — Search Engine Journal — “Google has introduced a Purchases on Google beta program which allows qualifying merchants to add a ‘Buy’ button to search ads… Clicking on the ‘Buy’ button will send Google Wallet users to a Google-hosted page where the product can be purchased.”
Google and Stripe eye a slice of UPI pie in India
Google and Stripe eye a slice of UPI pie in India — Economic Times — “Google is preparing to introduce its digital wallet, Android Pay, in India this year, anchoring the platform to the government-backed Unified Payments Interface as are other global companies including Stripe and WhatsApp… Google has started testing UPI on its Android Pay platform, said one person aware of the developments.”