Google has begun supporting the physical web in its Chrome browser for Android, enabling users to discover web content relevant to their surroundings via Eddystone Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons — without needing to download a specific app... More
PARTNER NEWS: Mahindra Comviva and mobile money and payments provider EcoCash have won the Best Mobile Innovation prize at the sixth Kalahari Awards for the EcoCash Savings Club... More
More than £146m has been sent using peer-to-peer mobile payments platform Paym since its launch in 2014, with 1.46m payments sent in the second half of 2015 compared to 774,628 in its first six months — an increase of 89% — the company has revealed. More
Wearable payments company FitPay has launched a campaign on Kickstarter to crowdfund the production of an NFC payment smartstrap for the Pebble Time family of smartwatches. More
Indian consumers can now make payments at participating retail locations using their mobile device and sound based technology developed by startup ToneTag. The feature has been integrated into MoboMoney, an NFC payments platform launched by information technology provider Tech Mahindra in December 2015, to extend the service to a greater number of mobile devices and merchants across the country. More
Consumers across the globe will use their mobile phones to spend a total of US$620bn on all forms of mobile transaction this year, representing a 37.8% year-on-year growth from $450bn in 2015, research from TrendForce reveals. By 2017, total mobile payment revenue will reach $780bn, climbing to $930bn in 2018 and $1.08tn in 2019. More
US merchants can now send targeted offers and rewards to their customers that can be redeemed at other merchants’ locations via Visa Commerce Network, a new service launched by Visa that eliminates the need for coupons at the point of sale. More
Chinese consumers using taxi hailing app Uber will soon be able to pay for their journeys using Ant Financial’s mobile payment platform Alipay when travelling abroad... More
A 16-page study that presents findings from research into how companies approach payment data security is now available to download from the NFC World Knowledge Centre... More
Passengers on Southern California’s Metrolink rail system will soon be able to pay for tickets on their smartphone and validate them at barcode readers on station turnstiles... More
PARTNER NEWS: Tokenization and mobile payments specialist Bell ID has been acquired by chip maker Rambus... More
Theatregoers on New York’s Broadway can now get information about the show they are seeing and receive offers from local restaurants, bars and other venues via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons and the Playbill Passport app. The app has been developed by technology company Broadway Voice and Playbill magazine while the beacons have been supplied by Gimbal and are used in conjunction with Urban Airship’s mobile marketing platform... More
PARTNER NEWS: Digital security giant Gemalto is supplying Russian mobile network operators MegaFon and VimpelCom with UpTeq Multi-Tenant NFC SIMs that allow the carriers’ subscribers to board metro trains, trams and buses across Moscow using their NFC phones and the Troika transport card mobile app... More
PARTNER NEWS: NXP and transaction technology provider Carta are to integrate Carta’s digital transaction platform with NXP’s NFC capabilities, with the aim of enabling NFC payments, loyalty and offers to be deployed across a wide range of mobile, wearable and connected devices... More
Customers of Union Bank & Trust (UBT) in Nebraska, USA will soon be able to make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments via a mobile app that uses a solution from digital payments provider Prairie Cloudware... More
PARTNER NEWS: Leading bottle cap supplier Guala Closures Group is working with chip maker NXP to develop NFC-enabled closures for wine and spirit bottles that will allow consumers to check the product’s authenticity and whether or not the beverage has been tampered with. More
Ford car owners will soon be able to make transactions from their vehicle for services such as car parking using FordPay, a virtual wallet that stores payment details on their mobile phone. The feature is part of the FordPass platform which aims to offer drivers more mobility options and also includes merchant rewards. More
PARTNER NEWS: Digital security giant Gemalto has gained MasterCard approval for a complete cloud-based mobile payment solution that includes everything from backoffice server platforms to the payment software running on cardholders’ mobile phones. More
Indian mobile payment platform Paytm is trialling a Sound Pay feature that will enable users of its mobile app to make in-store payments via ultrasonic sound waves which transmit data — including payment amount and customer credentials — to the point of sale... More
Mintchip, the digital currency developed and field tested in an NFC payments pilot by The Royal Canadian Mint, has been acquired by Loyalty Pays Holdings Corporation, a subsidiary of NanoPay... More