Merchants in the UK, Germany, Bulgaria and Romania are to participate in the pilot of a new mobile POS (mPOS) service that enables contactless payments to be accepted on Android mobile devices “without the need for any additional hardware”... More
Chinese mobile payments giant Alipay has announced a three-year plan to evolve its current offering into an open financial services and digital lifestyle platform — and has set a target of attracting 40m service providers by 2030... More
Samsung Pay is now live in Kazakhstan, with the backing of nine local banks — Altyn Bank, Alfa Bank, ATF Bank, CenterCredit Bank, Eurasian Bank, ForteBank, Halyk Bank, Jýsan Bank and Sberbank... More
Amazon is making the cashierless store technology it uses in its Amazon Go stores available to other retailers under a new Just Walk Out brand name... More
KNOWLEDGE CENTRE: The NFCW team has developed a new online conference and exhibition platform that lets readers quickly and easily share information on the innovative projects, products and services they are working on with our global audience of senior executives and technical specialists — and we’re opening early access today with some very special charter rates for sponsors and exhibitors... More
Nigeria’s Access Bank is to introduce a payments system that uses a combination of facial recognition and artificial intelligence to let customers make purchases at retail stores, Ventures Africa reports... More
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco is testing a cashless-only payments service at its High Holborn store in central London... More
Merchants can now use Apple Pay to let shoppers purchase items from directly within an augmented reality experience, using a new Custom Action feature Apple has rolled out for AR Quick Look... More
Las Vegas restaurant Makers & Finders is the first to use a new service that lets diners scan a QR code on their printed bill to pay for their meal with Apple Pay... More
PARTNER NEWS: STMicroelectronics has received NFC Forum certification for the ST25R3916, a high performance NFC universal device and EMVCo reader that is fully compliant with ISO 14443A/B, ISO 15693, ISO 18092, Felica and NFC Forum standards... More
Global contactless transaction values will reach nearly US$6tn in 2024, up from US$2tn today, Juniper Research forecasts... More
‘Low KYC’ norm to help mobile wallets retain their customers — Economic Times — “In a move set to bring relief to scores of mobile wallet firms such as Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon Pay and their several million users, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will allow wallet service providers to continue operating their millions of non-compliant know-your-customer (KYC) accounts which earlier faced cancellation… An estimated over 200m mobile wallets ran the risk of being cancelled by the regulators, once the deadline to upgrade their non-compliant accounts to ‘full KYC’ accounts expires on February 29.”
7-Eleven is piloting a cashierless store concept at its US headquarters that uses technology developed in-house to let employees check in to the 700sqft store, shop and then exit — without needing to visit a physical checkout... More
One in 14 people ‘no longer carry a wallet’ — Yahoo Finance — “One in 14 people say they no longer carry a wallet, a survey has found. Some 7% no longer take a wallet out and about with them, while a fifth (20%) said that if they were to look in their wallet it would not contain any cash.”
Turbulent entry into the payments market: Apple Pay requires high commission in Israel — Calcalist (translation) — “Apple representatives have begun a round of meetings with banks and credit companies to formulate agreements to begin Apple Pay’s operations in the country… Some players were surprised to find that Apple requires a fairly high fee estimated at 0.15% to 0.25% of any transaction made through Apple Pay… ‘It is disproportionate, and constitutes an exploitation of its status and power,’ says a source close to the talks between the parties.”
Jameson Irish Whiskey’s annual St Patrick’s Day limited-edition bottles this year include NFC tags that customers can tap to design their own custom label and enter a competition to win a personalised limited-edition bottle... More
Visa is planning the biggest changes to swipe fees in a decade — Bloomberg — “The company’s interchange rates — fees charged every time a consumer uses a card — will go up or down depending on the merchant and the way a consumer pays for their purchases, according to a document Visa sent to banks that outlines the changes. Higher rates are looming for transactions on e-commerce sites, while retailers in certain services categories, such as real estate and education, will see fees decline.”
Data on the latest adoption rates for contactless transactions, tokenization, transit payments and secure remote commerce has been made available by Visa CEO Al Kelly — along with details of the revenue model to be used by Plaid, which Visa is to acquire for $5.3bn... More
New York City has joined New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco in passing legislation that makes it illegal for stores, restaurants and other retail outlets to not accept cash... More
Consumers purchasing premium Sicilian blood oranges will be able to track the provenance of the product using a new system that combines NFC tags and sensors placed on each box of oranges with a blockchain-based tracking system... More