Apple has introduced a new Apple Watch Connected gym program that provides users with exclusive rewards at gyms that make use of the wearable device’s NFC payments and tap-to-connect capabilities... More
Huawei starts its mobile wallet service Huawei Pay in Pakistan — Technology Times — “Huawei has launched its mobile wallet service Huawei Pay in Pakistan in cooperation with UnionPay International and National Bank of Pakistan, making it the fourth market where Huawei Pay has been made available, following China, Russia and Hong Kong.”
US P2P payments app Venmo is adding support for a suite of custom-designed animated emojis that can be used “when paying, splitting and sharing payments” and include branded options from both Subway and Ikea... More
Overwhelming response on first day of RM30 e-Tunai initiative — The Star — “The claims for the e-Tunai Rakyat initiative kicked off today with Touch ‘n Go eWallet, Boost and GrabPay selected to be the service providers for the project… Malaysians aged 18 and above and who earn less than RM100,000 (US$24,533) annually will be eligible to receive RM30 (US$7.36) each through any of the participating e-wallets.”
Indonesia imposes standard QR code, fixed fees for e-wallets — Tech in Asia — “Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), officially imposed the QR code standardization called QRIS (Indonesian Standard QR Code) on January 1. This means that all mobile payment providers must replace their QR code with QRIS for easier transactions.”
Visa is to acquire Plaid for US$5.3bn, in a move that CEO Al Kelly says “will put us at the epicentre of the fintech world, expanding our total addressable market and accelerating our long-term revenue growth trajectory”... More
Visa has unveiled Tap to Phone, a new software-only solution that enables merchants to accept contactless payments on Android NFC mobile phones, without the need for any additional hardware... More
A new privacy controls section now lets users of Samsung Pay in the US opt to prevent the company from selling their data to “Samsung Pay Partners”, XDA Developers reports... More
A survey of more than 150,000 Chinese digital payment users has found that two-thirds have come across deceptive QR codes and 40.8% have had their codes surreptitiously forwarded to other people in the past year... More
Mutual Trust Bank has announced it is to be the first bank in Bangladesh to go live with Bangla QR, an interoperable QR payments system backed by the country’s central bank... More
Fifteen US universities have signed up to integrate their student ID cards with Google Pay, enabling staff and students to make payments and access facilities and residence halls with their Android NFC phone... More
All buses in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo will accept payments via Mastercard and Visa contactless cards, Samsung Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay by the end of this year, local business magazine Exame reports... More
WeChat Pay operator Tencent is working with China UnionPay on the adoption of a common QR code that will allow merchants to use the same code to accept payments from both companies’ mobile payment services, Caixin Global reports... More
PARTNER NEWS: Japanese carrier NTT Docomo is using NXP’s new NFC, ultra wideband (UWB) and secure element chipset in a concept POS device that lets consumers make secure payments “while keeping your smartphone in your pocket or bag”... More
The Central Bank of The Bahamas has begun pilot testing a digital version of the Bahamian dollar that uses QR codes to let users make payments and transfer funds using their smartphones... More
SEPTA, the transportation authority for the Greater Philadelphia region in the US, is to add support for Google Pay and Apple Pay across its network of subway, rail, trolley and bus services from the “spring or early summer” of 2020... More
Westpac, the last of the major Australian banks to hold out against the introduction of Apple Pay, has switched on support for the mobile payments service for customers of three of its smaller brands and has announced it will roll out support to its main customer base by June 2020... More
Riksbank develops an e-krona in a test environment — Riksbank — “During the first year of the e-krona pilot project, a technical platform will be developed with a user interface that enables, for instance, payment with the e-krona from a mobile phone, a card and a watch. The platform will also contain simulations of payment service providers, retail outlets and other parts of the Swedish payment system.”
Contactless point of sale installed base to exceed 161m by 2024 — Juniper Research — “New data from Juniper Research forecasts that the installed base of contactless-enabled POS (Point of Sale) devices will exceed 161m by 2024; growing from 78m in 2019. Contactless POS devices will then be 94% of all POS devices in use.”
Toy retailer PicWicToys, which took over the French stores of Toys ’R’ Us last year, has introduced a mobile self-checkout solution designed to ease the strain of shopping with children, by letting customers avoid waiting in a queue to check out and pay for their purchases... More