Over half a billion mobile money accounts have been registered in 92 countries, with 1.3bn transactions processed in December 2016 alone, research from GSMA reveals... More
More than 500m people now have a mobile money account
Money transfer
India Post to enable Aadhaar money transfers
India Post is to allow consumers to send and receive money using only their Aadhaar number from September 2017, when the government-operated postal system launches its own payments bank... More
US banks launch money-transfer app
Nineteen US banks have launched Zelle, the mobile P2P money transfer service unveiled last October to compete with the likes of Venmo, allowing users to send money directly to each other’s bank accounts within minutes... More
Kenyan banks roll out PesaLink real-time direct P2P mobile payments
Kenya’s new digital payments platform PesaLink, that will enable consumers to make real-time mobile person-to-person (P2P) payments from US$0.10 up to US$9,650 at any time without having to go through intermediaries, is “expected to cut the cost of transactions and transform the way consumers interact with their banks”, the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) says... More
Russian mobile network MTS launches first phase of Money Wallet payments, transfer and loyalty service
Russian mobile network operator MTS has launched MTS Money Wallet, an online payments and money transfer service that incorporates loyalty points, offers and discounts, and is to be expanded to transport and in-store payments via NFC, SMS and USSD technologies later this year... More
Paytm expects up to 30% fall in offline customers
Indian mobile wallet Paytm “expects to lose 20-30%” of customers making offline payments using QR codes, OTP or mobile-to-mobile transfers when the Reserve Bank of India removes cash withdrawal limits on March 13, The Financial Express reports... More
Turkish bank adds iMessage payments
Customers of Isbank in Turkey can now send and receive money using Apple’s iMessage... More
More than 150,000 Kenyan merchants to get mobile payments with Masterpass QR
More than 150,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya will be able to accept in-store mobile payments using QR code technology in 2017, using Mastercard’s Masterpass QR platform... More
Mahindra Comviva wins award for mobile wallet remittance network
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva has won an Aegis Graham Bell award for TerraPay, an international payment network that offers wholesale remittance services to mobile wallet providers... More
ING customers get iMessage payments
Customers of Dutch bank ING can now make a payment request and send money through Apple’s iMessage platform... More
PayPal launches Slack payments bot
PayPal customers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada can now send money to each other using a PayPal bot on team messaging service Slack... More
Young Brits adopting mobile wallets
Two thirds of 18- to 25-year-olds in the UK (64%) are using a mobile wallet, while only 14% have “no interest” in doing so, research released by social money transfer app Moneymailme reveals... More
Ant Financial to buy MoneyGram for US$880m
Alipay parent company Ant Financial has entered into a “definitive agreement” to acquire money transfer services provider MoneyGram for about US$880m... More
Facebook gets Spanish e-money licence
Facebook has obtained a licence to manage money transfers between users in Spain, according to El Pais... More
Hungary’s national bank to launch instant payments through mobile phone numbers
A proposal from Hungary’s central bank Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) for the launch of an instant payments service that will allow consumers to initiate a payment using only the mobile phone number of the recipient, with transactions completed “in a matter of seconds”, has been approved by the country’s Financial Stability Board... More
Korea gets BioCA facial recognition solution
A facial biometric authentication service for money transfers has been launched by Korea International Trade Association subsidiary Korea Trade Network (KTNET), in collaboration with biometrics provider Daon and the Korea Smart Authentication Corporation... More
DigiTally project enables mobile money transfers without network coverage
A project enabling mobile money transfers to take place at the point of sale in areas of less-developed countries with poor or no mobile network coverage has been unveiled, by removing the reliance on SMS messaging, and, instead, allowing two people to conduct a payment by copying short authentication codes between their phones... More
OCBC bank in local and cross-border blockchain payments trial
Singapore’s OCBC Bank says it has become the first bank in South East Asia to use blockchain technology in national and international payments... More
PwC in digital currency project for everyday banking
Global consultancy firm PwC has joined forces with US blockchain technology outfit Bloq to create a platform allowing digital currencies to be used for everyday banking... More
Finland to get multi-bank P2P mobile payments platform
Finnish consumers will be able to make P2P mobile payments using a mobile phone number from March 2017 through Siirto, a new platform unveiled by ATM operator Automatia — a company owned by three of the country’s banks including OP Bank Group, Nordea Bank and Danske Bank... More
