Google is to begin offering checking accounts to consumers from next year, in partnership with banks and credit unions, according to The Wall Street Journal... More
Asides
Translink to pilot NFC tags at Queensland bus stops
Public transportation agency Translink is exploring the use of NFC technology as a replacement for paper timetables at bus stops in the Australian state of Queensland, iTNews reports... More
EU banks plot pan-European rival to Visa and Mastercard
A group of 20 European banks are working together on “setting up a pan-European payment system to challenge the dominance of Visa, Mastercard and technology companies such as Google and PayPal,” French news agency AFP reports... More
EU antitrust chief examines Apple Pay
Apple Pay “has attracted regulatory scrutiny” from the EU’s Competition Commission due to “several expressions of concern about the US tech giant’s mobile payment service,” Reuters reports... More
Brits warm to biometric verification
Just under half of British consumers are ready to completely replace traditional verification methods with biometrics for withdrawing cash (46%), starting their car (45%) and unlocking their front door (41%), according to new research from Equifax... More
Visa invests in US ultrasonic payments startup
Visa has made “a financial injection” in Lisnr, a US startup that is using ultrasonic data transmission as an alternative to NFC and QR codes for mobile payments... More
Toronto to pilot bank card payments on public transport network
Greater Toronto area public transportation agency Metrolinx “is to start testing an open payment function on its Presto fare-card system as early as next year,” the Toronto Star reports... More
India’s bank-led UPI instant payments platform reports 1bn mobile transactions
“UPI has had the fastest acceptance rate not just among payment platforms but digital platforms of any kind,” Dilip Asbe, chief executive officer of the National Payments Corporation of India, has told Bloomberg... More
7-Eleven reports on face biometric payments adoption in China
A face recognition-based biometric payments system installed at 1,000 7-Eleven outlets in southern China last May has been adopted by 10% of the convenience store’s customers, the retailer has told Nikkei Asian Review... More
Kazakhstan pilots face recognition bus ticketing
A new bus ticketing system that lets passengers use face recognition to make hands-free payments for their tickets has entered pilot testing in Kazakhstan’s capital city of Nur-Sultan... More
Moscow Metro adds support for China UnionPay open loop cards
Travellers in Russia’s capital can now use China UnionPay’s Quickpass contactless cards or an NFC payment app connected to a Quickpass card to pay their fares at 150 Moscow Metro stations, China’s Xinhua news agency reports... More
UK government includes iPhone NFC passport reading in iOS Brexit app
The UK government has introduced an iOS version of its EU Exit: ID Document Check app, enabling EU citizens to use the NFC passport reading capabilities Apple has introduced in iOS 13 to register for settled status in the UK... More
Report: EU antitrust investigators are examining Apple Pay
Apple Pay “has caught the eye of EU antitrust investigators, who have asked payment companies for feedback on the service,” regulatory risk specialist MLex reports... More
EBA sets new Strong Customer Authentication deadline
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued a new Opinion that provides the European payments industry with an EU-wide additional 15 months to comply with strong customer authentication (SCA) requirements for online ecommerce transactions... More
NXP updates Android NFC TagWriter app
PARTNER NEWS: Chipmaker NXP has updated NFC TagWriter, its Android app that can write and rewrite information such as contact data, web links, WiFi and Bluetooth connection details, as well as triggers for emails, calls, text messages, apps and more, into single or multiple NFC cards and tags... More
UnionPay reports 200m mobile payments users
There are now more than 200 million users of the UnionPay mobile payments app, the China-based payments network reports, and more than 3m merchants outside mainland China now accept UnionPay mobile payments... More
China delays launch of digital currency
China has ‘no timetable’ for the launch of its digital currency, the governor of the country’s central bank has revealed... More
Two in five wrist-worn wearables now come with NFC
While health applications continue to be the main consumer adoption driver for wrist-worn wearables, support for mobile payments “is also starting to become a mainstay,” according to new research from IDC... More
Apple expands 3% cashback network for Apple Card holders to Walgreens and Duane Reede stores
US Apple Card holders shopping at Walgreens and Duane Reade stores can now earn 3% cashback on their purchases when they use their mobile phone to make an Apple Pay payment with their Apple Card... More
NAB to integrate receipts into mobile banking app
Customers of National Australia Bank will be able to begin viewing receipts for their purchases from within their mobile banking app from later this year... More