The number of registered mobile money accounts globally rose by 13% from 1.4bn in 2021 to 1.6bn in 2022 and total mobile money transaction values grew by 22% from US$1tn to US$1.26tn over the same period, according to research by the GSMA... More
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) in the USA is to implement a “next generation” account-based ticketing system that will support both open and closed loop contactless fare payments, mobile ticketing, flexible fare structures and fare capping across its public transportation networks... More
Apple users in Japan will soon be able to store and top up a digital version of rail operator JR West’s ICOCA prepaid contactless transit card in Apple Wallet and use it to pay their fares for bus and rail journeys with a tap of their iPhone or Apple Watch... More
Freight brokers in the US can now transfer advance payments for fuel to carriers and their drivers using a mobile wallet app that allows drivers to make contactless fuel payments from their smartphone... More
A request for proposals from “experienced vendors” has been issued by Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in the USA, to develop, implement and maintain a multimodal mobile and contactless fare payments system that will use an open architecture to make it possible to quickly and easily add support for new payments technologies... More
The number of new Hyundai Card users in South Korea rose by 75% from 116,000 in February to 203,000 in March following the launch of Apple Pay in the country on 21 March... More
Merchants in Taiwan have become the first outside the USA to be able to accept in-store contactless payments on iPhones using Apple’s Tap to Pay software point of sale (sPOS) feature... More
Students attending Purdue University in West Lafayette in the US state of Indiana can now access campus buildings and authorise on-campus payments using a digital student identity card stored on their Apple or Android NFC smartphone or smartwatch rather than a physical ID card... More
Residents of India will soon be able to make mobile payments for goods and services when visiting Nepal from their smartphone’s digital wallet using an interoperable cross-border payments system to be implemented between the two countries... More
Lithuanian supermarket chain IKI has opened its second contactless convenience store in the capital Vilnius, enabling customers to check in at the store door by tapping their payment card, mobile wallet or retailer’s app, select the products they want and pay for their purchases without needing to scan them, by tapping their payment card as they leave... More
Merchants in South Korea can now opt to accept Apple Pay payments on their smartphone without needing to purchase and install NFC readers at the point of sale as a number of new or upgraded software POS solutions roll out across the country... More
Passengers on buses in North Wales can now make contactless fare payments on services run by 25 different local operators with their debit or credit card using an interoperable fare-capped ticketing system rolled out across nearly 200 routes in the region... More
The number of payment cards issued via digital card issuance platforms worldwide will increase from 500m in 2023 to more than 1.3bn by 2027, according to a Juniper Research forecast... More
Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) is to integrate its TransitLink and EZ-Link ticketing and travel card services in order to “simplify and streamline the ticketing experience” and enable transit users to access “a range of ticketing and card-related services through a single interface”... More
Google Wallet has launched in Japan, enabling users to store and use their credit, debit, transit and loyalty cards, boarding passes, tickets and other digital credentials on their Android NFC smartphone or Wear OS smartwatch... More
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has released an NFC chip that supports active waveshaping and heartbeat detection, enabling developers and manufacturers to create smaller and more efficient contactless payment solutions and ensure devices comply with EMVCo 3.1 specifications... More
Passengers travelling on rail, bus, tram and subway services across the whole of Austria can now make contactless end-to-end fare payments for single or multi-modal journeys with two swipes on their smartphone screen using a ticketing function added to the Austrian Federal Railways ÖBB Tickets app... More
Samsung and Naver Financial have launched an integrated mobile payments service in South Korea that enables Naver Pay users to make in-store payments with their smartphone at outlets accepting Samsung Pay and Samsung Pay users to make online payments at ecommerce merchants supporting Naver Pay... More
Apple Pay has launched in South Korea with support for Mastercard, Visa and local debit and credit cards issued by Hyundai Card... More
Passengers travelling on services operated by Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) will soon be able to make contactless fare payments with their physical or digital credit card as well as an Octopus transit card or a digital QR code ticket on their smartphone... More