Consumers in New York, Chicago, Denver and other US cities as well as in London in the UK will soon be able to purchase items from remotely controlled robotic mobile vending machines with a tap of their contactless payment card or mobile wallet... More
Passengers travelling on Eurostar rail services from London’s St Pancras International station to continental Europe will be able to complete pre-departure ticket and passport checks before they arrive at the terminus via biometric face recognition technology, enabling them to board the train using face verification alone... More
UK supermarket chain Tesco has opened its first checkout-free store in central London, enabling customers to check in at the store entrance with a smartphone app, select the products they want and leave without needing to scan their purchases or pay for them at the checkout... More
Transport for London (TfL) is rolling out automatic weekly fare capping on the UK capital’s Tube and rail network, ensuring that passengers using its Oyster transit card on a pay-as-you-go basis are charged “the best possible fares for all their journeys made between Monday and Sunday”... More
Supermarket chain Aldi is trialling its first checkout-free store in London using technology that will enable customers to gain access to the store by scanning a smartphone app, select the products they want to purchase and then leave without needing to pay at a till... More
The number of payments made using Apple Pay and Google Pay increased by nearly 650% and the number of PIN-free contactless card transactions grew by more than 10% in certain regions of the UK, according to figures published by merchant payments provider Dojo... More
Amazon has opened its first cashierless grocery store outside the US on London’s Ealing Broadway, enabling consumers to access the store and pay for their purchases by downloading a QR code to their mobile device and scanning it at the shop entrance... More
Nearly one in two Americans (46%) are most likely or definitely interested in mobile payment options for public transit ticketing “for a safer mass transit journey”, a survey of consumers in 28 countries around the world has found... More
Customers of Pret A Manger sandwich shops across London and Manchester can now make cashless charitable donations in store using their contactless payment card or mobile device... More
Public transport users in Los Angeles will be able to add their TAP transit card to their iPhone or Apple Watch “this year”, LA Metro has announced... More
Rail passengers using Eurostar services to travel between London and continental Europe are set to be the first to use a new face verification system to board their train “without showing a ticket or passport”... More
Commuters in 275 Chinese cities can now add their T-Union public transportation card to their iPhone or Apple Watch and then use their smartphone or wearable to tap in and out of bus and subway services without the need to first validate the transaction using Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode... More
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco is testing a cashless-only payments service at its High Holborn store in central London... More
Iconic UK retailer M&S is expanding its mobile self-checkout service to 49 stores across London, following a successful pilot at six stores that saw a Mobile Pay Go transaction being made every three seconds during lunchtime trading... More
Apple Pay revenue and transactions have “more than doubled year-over-year with the run rate exceeding 15bn transactions a year,” Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed... More
Apple Pay’s Express Transit mode working in parts of London Underground — MacRumors — “Apple Pay’s Express Transit mode has been functional on at least some tube and bus routes in London since last Tuesday or so, according to multiple MacRumors readers… Express Transit mode eliminates the need for users to authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode or even wake their device when they pay for rides with Apple Pay.”
A new deal between Google and Cubic Transportation Systems is set to make it possible for public transport users in a number of major cities around the world to use Google Pay to add their transit card to their NFC mobile phone... More
Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has added a manned till and two self-checkout stations to the London store it opened in April as the UK’s first checkout-free supermarket... More
Would you microchip yourself to speed up paying with contactless? — This is Money — “11% of Londoners surveyed by PaymentSense and YouGov said they’d consider microchipping themselves to make it quicker for them to make contactless payments… A quarter say they’d be happy to use a fingerprint scanner to verify payments. 16% would be in favour of using a retinal scanner to do so.”
Uber’s move into transit ticketing has resulted in a “strong initial performance” with more than 1,200 Regional Transportation District (RTD) tickets sold through the Uber app since the service launched in Denver in May and growth “averaging 42% each week during the rollout period”... More
