Apple Pay has “made only a small dent in the global payments market” due to technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks, according to a report by Reuters... More
Reuters
Sweatcoin pays Brits to get fit
UK consumers will soon be rewarded whenever they are physically active with Sweatcoin — a virtual currency that can be earned by exercising and then exchanged at select retailers via a mobile app set to launch next week... More
ICBC confirms Apple Pay launch date in China
Customers of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will be able to use Apple Pay from 18 February, the bank has confirmed in a series of tweets reported by Reuters... More
Samsung Pay to add online payments
Samsung is to expand Samsung Pay to both online payments and down-range smartphones in the US this year, according to Reuters... More
Target to launch its own mobile payment service?
US retail giant Target is in the early stages of developing its own mobile payment service... More
Apple Pay yet to sign up key Australian banks
Apple is struggling to persuade Australia’s big banks to sign up for Apple Pay, according to Reuters... More
MCX expands CurrentC pilot
US retailer-led mobile wallet consortium MCX, which announced a deal earlier this week to support JP Morgan Chase’s new Chase Pay service, is expanding its Columbus, Ohio pilot to include 200 stores operated by “12 large retailers”... More
Tech firms face more regulation on payment services
Regulators are looking more closely at whether technology companies that provide financial services should be supervised more heavily, according to HSBC chairman Douglas Flint... More
Ingenico joins WorldPay bidding war
Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico has submitted a bid for UK-based payment processor WorldPay... More
China moves to open up mobile payments services
People’s Bank of China has proposed new regulations that could force internet companies Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu to offer each others’ online payment services alongside their own... More
Samsung smartwatches to support Samsung Pay?
Samsung is planning to offer Samsung Pay mobile payments on the smartwatch devices it is scheduled to launch in the second half of this year... More
Less than a quarter of top US retailers accept Apple Pay
Fewer than a quarter of the National Retail Federation’s list of the top 100 US retailers are now accepting Apple Pay, with nearly two-thirds saying they will not be accepting it this year and only four saying they have plans to add support in the next 12 months, research conducted by Reuters has found... More
Denmark government aims for cashless society
The government in Denmark has proposed doing away with the obligation for retailers in the country to accept payment in cash, in an attempt to replace it with other methods such as plastic cards and mobile payments... More
Swatch CEO discusses NFC watch plans
Swatch will launch its first watch containing an NFC chip within two months, CEO Nick Hayek has announced — and deals signed with China UnionPay as well as one other payments network mean that owners will be able to use their watch to make payments around the world... More
eBay to spin off PayPal?
eBay is considering a spinoff of its payments service PayPal as early as next year, Reuters reports, but details of the move and what structure it could take remain unclear... More
Isis delays US NFC launch
The first pilots of the US mobile operators’ NFC payments program in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas will not go ahead on schedule and no new date for the launch has yet been set, says Isis. More
Apple buys fingerprint biometrics specialist Authentec
The company’s products include a fingerprint sensor for NFC mobile phones that ensures only the registered user of a device can gain access to their mobile wallet. More
9m NFC phones on order
Samsung has taken preorders for some nine million Galaxy S III handsets from more than 100 mobile networks, Reuters reports... More
Canadian carriers to launch NFC payments ‘within six months’
Negotiations between Canada’s telecoms companies and banks are in the final stages and mobile network operator Rogers Communications expects to launch a mobile wallet service within six months, Reuters reports... More
Nokia Money to close down
Nokia is to close down its Nokia Money service, which was launched in India in late 2011 and was expected to expand internationally... More