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Merchants in Germany can now accept PIN-free contactless payments on their Android NFC smartphone without needing extra acceptance technology using a software point of sale (sPOS) solution launched by the Sparkasse group of savings banks. The Sparkasse POS app enables merchants to collect payments of up to the current European Union contactless transaction limit of […]

The UK Treasury and the Bank of England have established a central bank digital currency (CBDC) taskforce to coordinate research into the benefits, risks and practicalities of introducing a digital pound. The two institutions are also to establish a CBDC Engagement Forum and a CBDC Technology Forum comprising key stakeholders and technical experts to consider

Octopus users in Hong Kong will soon be able to pay for public transport fares in more than 300 cities in mainland China with a new physical transit card to be launched “by the end of this year or early next year”, according to a South China Morning Post (SCMP) report. The move is part

PARTNER NEWS: Opera has selected Antelop Solutions as a long-term digital payments partner, enabling users of its new Dify in-browser cashback and digital wallet app to activate a Dify digital debit card in Google Pay and use it to make NFC payments in stores. Opera, one of the world’s leading internet browser providers with 380m

The number of payments made using Apple Pay and Google Pay increased by nearly 650% and the number of PIN-free contactless card transactions grew by more than 10% in certain regions of the UK, according to figures published by merchant payments provider Dojo. In other regions, adoption rates were lower, with some seeing increases in

The Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (GDRTA) in the US state of Ohio has launched a reusable physical smartcard to enable passengers without a smartphone to make capped contactless fare payments using its Tapp Pay account-based ticketing service. Tapp Pay uses fare-capping technology to ensure passengers never pay more than the price of a daily

Supermarkets, convenience stores and other retailers in the UK could soon begin trialling facial analysis technology that enables them to verify a customer’s age when purchasing alcohol at self-checkouts without requiring a staff member to check their ID. Ten of the country’s largest retailers, as well as “a number of ecommerce and convenience stores”, are

Passengers on 24 public transportation systems in the San Francisco Bay Area of the USA can now add their Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Clipper stored-value transit card to Apple Wallet and use their iPhone or Apple Watch to make contactless payments for bus, train and ferry fares. iPhone and Apple Watch users can also activate

More than two-fifths (43%) of Europeans rank privacy as the most important feature of a digital euro central bank digital currency (CBDC), with 18% citing security, 11% the ability to pay across the eurozone, 9% the lack of additional costs and 8% offline usability, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) survey. The survey is