Google Pay has gone live in Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal and Romania with support for Mastercard and Visa cards issued by participating banks and card issuers... More
Mobile payments
TfL to integrate Oyster and contactless fare payment systems
Transport for London (TfL) is planning to integrate the back office systems for its Oyster transit card and contactless fare payment services as well as replace validation readers across its entire transport network from 2025... More
JCB reports 30% rise in contactless payments volumes
The number of contactless transactions made by some 140 million JCB cardholders across 24 markets increased by more than 30% between July 2019 and July this year, the Tokyo-based payments network reports in a new white paper... More
Regional Transit Service integrates transit tickets into mobility-as-a-service app
Passengers using Regional Transit Service (RTS) buses in the US city of Rochester can now plan their journeys, get real-time updates, connect to third-party mobility services and make tap-and-ride fare payments from within a single mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) app... More
Pandemic spurs half of US shoppers to try mobile contactless payments
More than half (53%) of today’s shoppers have used a mobile contactless payment option for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a survey by USA-based Inmar Intelligence... More
Facebook digital currency researchers publish ultra high-speed payments paper
A digital transaction settlement system being developed by researchers working on Facebook’s Novi cryptocurrency digital wallet app could support up to 160,000 transactions per second, “about 7x the peak transaction rate of the Visa payments network”, according to a paper published by the research team... More
China to maintain central database of all digital currency transactions
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will keep a database of all transactions made using the digital yuan, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to China Daily... More
Saudi Arabia reports ‘phenomenal’ increase in NFC mobile payments
NFC mobile payments accounted for 25% of overall POS transaction volumes in Saudi Arabia in September, Saudi Payments reports... More
Juniper: Payments from smart home devices will top US$164bn by 2025
The total global transaction value of purchases made using smart home devices is expected to rise from US$22bn this year to more than US$164bn in 2025, according to Juniper Research... More
Nottingham adds NFC top ups to Robin Hood transit card
Public transport users in Nottingham, UK, can now buy credit or an extension to their season ticket with their NFC mobile phone and then transfer it to their multi-operator Robin Hood transit card by simply tapping their card to their NFC device... More
Japanese café uses Apple’s new NFC App Clips to let customers order and pay with their mobile phone
Customers at the Kitasando Coffee shop in Tokyo can now tap an NFC tag with their iPhone to launch the company’s App Clip, place their order and then use Apple Pay to pay for their food and drink... More
Antelop lets banks provide their customers with a way to manage tokenized cards from within their mobile banking app
PARTNER NEWS: Antelop Solutions has launched a tokenized card management solution that makes it possible for banks to provide their customers with the ability to view, control, push, update and manage the card details that they have shared with all the different mobile wallet providers and ecommerce merchants they deal with — from within their mobile banking app... More
Google Pay drives user engagement with Go India travel game
Google Pay users in India can now earn rewards by taking part in a digital travel game and collecting ‘tickets’ for a virtual journey around the country every time they use the mobile payments service on either their Android or iOS device... More
Coca-Cola to roll out contactless drinks vending machines across the US
All 52,000 Coca-Cola Freestyle soda fountains across the USA will allow customers to order and pay for their drinks directly from their mobile phone by the end of 2020... More
Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes to install digital menu boards across USA and Canada
Customers at Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes fast food outlets will be able to order meals, earn loyalty rewards and make contactless payments at digital menu boards being rolled out to 10,000 redesigned drive-thru locations across the USA and Canada... More
CTA adds support for Apple Pay Express Transit for tap-and-go fare payments in Chicago
Passengers on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus and train services can now use their iPhone or Apple Watch to make tap-and-go fare payments via Apple Pay’s Express Transit mode by uploading the authority’s Ventra transit card to their Apple Wallet... More
University of Tennessee reports on NFC campus ID adoption
Students and staff at the University of Tennessee in the US are now using mobile campus ID cards stored on their iPhone or Apple Watch to gain access to buildings and make on- and off-campus payments an average of 46,000 times a day, more than double the average six months ago... More
Russia launches public consultation on digital ruble
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has begun a public consultation on the launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that would allow citizens to use “mobile devices and other media” to make payments using a digital ruble... More
India bans mobile payment providers from launching new proprietary QR codes
Payment system operators in India can no longer issue new proprietary QR codes for mobile payments, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced... More
Visa: Consumers have made an extra 500m touch-free payments in Europe since contactless limits were increased
Visa has processed 500m additional PIN-less, touch-free transactions since contactless payment limits were increased in 29 countries across Europe in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the card network reports... More