PARTNER NEWS: Customers using banking apps powered by Mahindra Comviva’s Mobiquity Wallet will soon be able to withdraw cash and top up their mobile wallets at the ATM using either host card emulation (HCE) based NFC or by scanning a QR code, allowing them to save time by preparing transactions on their phone before they get to the cash machine... More
Swiss luxury watchmaker Mondaine is to add NFC payment capability to a variety of its watches, starting with its Mondaine Helvetica No1 smartwatch, that will let wearers make payments with a tap of their wrist at any contactless enabled terminal. More
London-based startup Curve has launched a physical payment card that will let consumers store an “unlimited number” of bank cards and make contactless payments at point-of-sale terminals wherever MasterCard cards are accepted. More
Apple Pay has begun rolling out across China, letting consumers pay in-store with compatible Apple devices using their China UnionPay credit and debit cards at QuickPass-enabled POS terminals as well as make purchases within participating mobile apps. More
More than one billion contactless MasterCard and Maestro transactions were processed in Europe in 2015, up 150% on 2014, MasterCard reports... More
Mobile wallet provider FreeCharge has partnered with mPOS company ePaisa to offer its services to “thousands” of retailers across India... More
UK consumers can now make P2P transfers and pay online using a virtual MasterCard through Payfriendz... More
PayPal has unveiled a new platform that enables merchants and partners to embed buy buttons in emails, social shares, blogs, articles, ads and apps through a set of APIs... More
One fifth of iPhone 6 owners in the US (20%) have used Apple Pay at least once, research from First Annapolis Consulting reveals, down from 22% in spring last year. 15% say they use it regularly — more than once per month — down from 19% in the 2015 survey. More
Vodafone Wallet users in Europe will soon be able to make NFC mobile payments at stores, restaurants and other retail locations using their PayPal accounts... More
European mobile point of sale specialist Payleven has closed a US$10m Series D funding round, bringing the total raised to date to $51m... More
Mobeam has updated its mobile coupon and offer app Beep’nGo to let customers use retail loyalty cards, gift cards and barcode coupons on their smartphone at checkout scanners for the first time... More
More than four in ten New Zealanders (41%) would consider using NFC mobile payments today and 44% believe mobile payments will be the next thing to take off, followed by biometrics/facial recognition/fingerprints (21%) and wearable technology (18%), research from MasterCard reveals... More
Apple Pay has seen an acceleration in mobile app acceptance across the US, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who calls it an “inflection point” in a recent investor note reported by Quartz... More
Customers of Australia’s ANZ bank can now make host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments “with the broadest range of cards on offer” using a new ANZ Mobile Pay service. More
More than 3bn loyalty cards will operate as mobile-only or will be integrated into mobile apps by 2020, up from 1.4bn last year, Juniper Research predicts... 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
Customers of Kazkommertsbank (KKB) in Kazakhstan can now make host card emulation (HCE) based NFC mobile payments using a new service launched in partnership with Visa... 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
Apple Pay is now available in more than 2m US retail locations, according to Bloomberg, with the Crate & Barrel, Chick-fil-A and Au Bon Pain chains also due to roll out the service soon... More