Semble, the NFC payments joint venture between New Zealand’s carriers and the Paymark payments network, has begun testing its NFC mobile payment solution with 250 of the company’s shareholders and stakeholders in Auckland and Wellington... More
Pilot
Canadian banks pilot biometric wristband payments
Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), MasterCard and other Canadian issuing banks have begun pilot testing an NFC version of Nymi, a biometrically authenticated wristband that uses the wearer’s unique cardiac rhythm to verify their identity. More
SK Planet to roll out Bluetooth beacons to 10,000 stores across Korea
SK Planet has launched a new Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) service in Korea that offers customers reward points and benefits directly on their mobile device whenever they enter a participating retail location. The BLE beacon-based solution is expected to be installed in more than 10,000 stores by next month. More
Fresh & Easy tests ATM rewards
Seventeen Fresh & Easy stores in Phoenix are piloting new machines from in-store ATM operator Cardtronics that offer customers discounts they can apply to store purchases by scanning a QR code on their cash withdrawal receipt using a smartphone running the company’s AllTM app... More
Football fans get BLE promos
UK Football League sponsor Sky Bet has installed Bluetooth beacons at Elland Road, Leeds and the New York Stadium, Rotherham to send offers to football fans as part of a pilot project that could be rolled out to other locations across the country... More
MCX suffers email address data breach
“Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the email addresses of some of our CurrentC pilot program participants and individuals who had expressed interest in the app,” retailer-owned mobile payments consortium MCX has revealed... More
McDonald’s adopts Softcard
McDonald’s 14,000 restaurants and drive-thru locations across the US have begun accepting Android NFC mobile payments following a successful pilot program with carrier joint venture Softcard that began in 2013... More
Newspaper tests BLE beacons
Dutch newspaper publisher NDC Media is testing Bluetooth beacons with thirty shops in the town of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, to send offers to consumer smartphones running the Lightcurb mobile app... More
Singtel charges Angry Birds toys to buyers phone bills
Singapore carrier Singtel is taking carrier billing into the physical goods world with a pilot test of a service that lets customers order Angry Birds plush toys for delivery to their home address and charge the cost to their phone bill... More
JPMorgan Chase CEO outlines mobile wallet strategy
JPMorgan Chase plans to make its debit and credit cards available in a wide array of mobile wallets — including one of its own to be launched later this year — even if that means cutting current margins, CEO Jamie Dimon has told analysts during the bank’s third quarter earnings call. More
MasterCard backs Zwipe fingerprint payment card
MasterCard has partnered with Zwipe, maker of a contactless payment card that includes an integrated fingerprint biometric sensor, for the commercial launch of the technology following a pilot with Norway’s Sparebanken DIN. More
US bank tests NFC Wave add-on
“One of the largest financial institutions in North America” is conducting an NFC mobile payments pilot that uses the Wave NFC device developed by On Track Innovations (OTI) in combination with provisioning and mobile wallet technology provided by ABnote... More
Apple hires Visa Europe NFC lead
Mary Carol Harris, Visa Europe’s high profile director of mobile, has joined Apple Europe to work on Apple Pay... More
Tesco pilots QR payments
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco is trialling a mobile payments service based on QR codes, Marketing Week reports... More
Macy’s unveils mobile payments and customer marketing plans
Macy’s Inc, owner of the Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department store chains, has unveiled plans to implement a range of new technologies designed to provide an omnichannel shopping service to its customers... More
Subway to accept mobile payments in 26,000 US locations
Subway restaurants across the US are to begin accepting NFC mobile payments on 1 October, using new POS terminals that carry branding from mobile network operator-owned commerce venture Softcard... More
Apple to offer rewards to mobile payment users?
Apple is to pilot a merchant partnership program that “may be related to Apple launching a loyalty/rewards program”, Bank Innovation reports, citing “multiple sources with knowledge of the program”... More
Retailer-owned payments venture MCX unveils CurrentC brand
Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), the mobile payments venture co-owned by US retail chains with collective revenues of more than US$1 trillion annually, has announced that its payments, loyalty and offers platform is to be called CurrentC — and provided the first details of how the service will work when it rolls out to 110,000 merchant locations across the US in 2015... More
Aruba Airport to test biometric tokens
Air France-KLM is to test a single biometric passenger token concept at Aruba Airport, Future Travel Experience reports... More
American Express tests HCE for NFC payments
American Express is working with Croatia’s Privredna Banka Zagreb (PBZ), part of the Italy-based Intesa Sanpaolo banking group, to pilot an NFC payments service that makes use of host card emulation (HCE) technology... More