Customers at a supermarket in the German city of Cologne owned by retail giant Rewe will soon be able to enter the store by scanning a QR code, selecting the items they wish to buy and paying for them from their mobile phone without needing to scan their purchases or use a checkout... More
QR Codes
More than 90% of consumers worldwide will consider using digital payments in the next year, Mastercard predicts
More than nine in 10 consumers (93%) will consider using digital payment methods including contactless, QR code and biometric payments as well as cryptocurrency transactions in the next year, according to a Mastercard survey... More
Chinese firm promotes video game with giant QR code in the sky
Gamers in Shanghai were able to download a link to a video game by scanning a giant QR code created in the sky above the Chinese city by a formation of more than 1,500 drones with their smartphone... More
Utah to pilot NFC and QR code-enabled mobile driving licences
The US state of Utah is to pilot a mobile driving licence (mDL) that will enable drivers to provide digital proof of their identity, licence status and age by tapping their mobile device on an NFC reader or by showing a QR code for scanning... More
East Caribbean Central Bank launches digital currency
Residents of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Kitts and Nevis can now pay for goods and services and make peer-to-peer money transfers from their smartphones using the East Caribbean Central Bank’s DCash central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Thai and Vietnamese central banks roll out cross-border QR payments
The Bank of Thailand and the State Bank of Vietnam have launched an interoperable cross-border payments system that will enable Thai visitors to Vietnam and Vietnamese visitors to Thailand to make QR code-based payments for goods and services using their mobile banking app... More
US city leverages QR codes for contactless Easter egg hunt
Children in Texarkana on the Texas-Arkansas border in the USA can now take part in a contactless Easter egg hunt by looking for special eggs with scannable QR codes that have been hidden in parks, family-friendly businesses and public locations across the city... More
EU citizens to get digital vaccination certificates they can display on their mobile phone
European Union residents will be able to confirm that they have been vaccinated against Covid-19, received a negative test result or recovered from the illness using an EU-wide Digital Green Certificate by the summer, according to a legislative proposal issued by the European Commission... More
Australian winery picks NFC tags for brand promotion campaign
Consumers purchasing specially marked bottles of wine produced by the Devil’s Corner winery in Tasmania will be able to enter a promotion and win rewards by tapping an NFC chip in the label or scanning a QR code... More
Care home pilots biometric digital health passport
Staff at the Warren Manor care facility in Blackpool in the UK are piloting a digital passport that enables them to verify their Covid-19 vaccination, test or recovery status when they arrive at their workplace by scanning their finger... More
Amazon opens its first cashierless store outside US in London
Amazon has opened its first cashierless grocery store outside the US on London’s Ealing Broadway, enabling consumers to access the store and pay for their purchases by downloading a QR code to their mobile device and scanning it at the shop entrance... More
Sofia rolls out single journey QR mobile tickets across public transportation network
Public transport users in Sofia can now buy and store single journey QR code e-tickets on their mobile device which they can validate for travel on metro, bus, tram and trolleybus services across the Bulgarian capital’s transit network... More
Israel rolls out vaccine certification app
Israeli citizens who have received two doses of Covid-19 vaccine or recovered from the illness can now prove their status using a government-issued Green Pass vaccine certification app on their mobile devices... More
Delhi Metro to roll out mobile and contactless ticketing across entire network
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is to implement an upgraded contactless ticketing system across its entire network, enabling passengers to pay for their journeys via QR, an EMV bank card or a RuPay-enabled National Common Mobility Card (NCMC)... More
Japanese convenience store trials face and palm biometrics for checkout-free shopping
The Green Leaves+ shop-and-go store in the Yokohama Techno Tower Hotel in Japan is piloting a biometrics-enabled checkout-free service that allows customers to enter the store by verifying their identity with just their face and a swipe of their palm... More
Chinese consumers now make three mobile payments every day
Chinese consumers made an average of three mobile payments a day during 2020, while 98% of the Chinese population consider mobile payments to be their most frequently used transaction method, an increase of five percentage points on last year, a new survey reveals... More
PBOC to launch third digital yuan trial in Shenzhen
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to follow its pilots of NFC-based contactless digital currency payments with the distribution of a further 20m digital yuan (US$3.1m) in a third ‘red envelope’ lottery to be held in the city of Shenzhen... More
Vaccine credentials coalition to develop interoperable digital Covid-19 passport
A coalition of technology and healthcare providers in the US has launched an initiative to develop a solution that will enable individuals to store and access their Covid-19 vaccination records in their digital wallet “in a secure, verifiable and privacy preserving way”... More
Agricultural Bank of China pilots central bank digital currency ATMs
The Agricultural Bank of China has launched pilot ATMs that enable customers in Shenzhen to deposit and withdraw money in the form of digital yuan, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Juniper forecasts 2.2bn QR code payment users by 2025
The number of people using QR code payment services globally will rise from 1.5 billion in 2020 to more than 2.2 billion in 2025, representing close to one in three (29%) of all the world’s mobile phone users, Juniper Research predicts... More