peachwire

BNP Paribas Visa Premier card customers will soon have the option of upgrading to a biometric payment card for an additional fee of €24 (US$29) a year, the French bank has revealed. The biometric card is equipped with a sensor that enables users to authenticate payments of any amount with their fingerprint rather than a […]

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is to develop a proof of concept platform to explore the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for cross-border payments and has identified CBDCs as one of six “thematic priorities” for the year. The platform will use “multiple wholesale CBDCs to explore the feasibility of faster and cheaper

NFCW EXPO: Fidesmo, a contactless platform provider that makes it possible for issuers to connect payment, transit ticketing and access control cards to a wide range of both passive and active devices, has opened a booth in the NFCW Expo. Fidesmo works with issuing partners and wearable manufacturers across the Nordic region and beyond, including

Employees travelling on Seoul Metro’s Ui-Sinseol light rapid transit line in South Korea are testing a face recognition payment system that enables passengers to pay their fares without needing to tap a smartphone or card or remove their face mask. The payment system has been introduced at access gates on 13 stations along the line

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to follow its pilots of NFC-based contactless digital currency payments with the distribution of a further 20m digital yuan (US$3.1m) in a third ‘red envelope’ lottery to be held in the city of Shenzhen. Recipients will be able to spend their central bank digital currency (CBDC) across more

The total value of digital wallet transactions globally will reach more than US$10tn in 2025, according to Juniper Research, “with over 34% of mobile handsets set to use contactless payments in 2025, up from 11% in 2020.” Contactless and ecommerce payments will account for 50% of the total digital wallet spend in 2025, up from

Nine in ten card payments made in UK stores during 2020 (88.6%) were contactless and the average contactless user made 141 transactions worth a total of £1,640 (US$2,241) over the course of the year, according to Barclaycard. The average spend per contactless transaction in 2020 was £12.38 (US$16.92), a rise of £2.78 (US$3.80) on the

The city of Moscow will complete the modernisation of its integrated contactless ticketing system across all transit networks by the end of 2021, its deputy mayor for transport Maksim Liksutov has announced. The Russian capital’s fare payment service supports “bank cards of virtually all payment systems” as well as Huawei Pay, Mir Pay, Alipay, China

The European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) are to consider launching a digital euro project towards the middle of 2021. “Such a project would answer key design and technical questions,” the two institutions say in a joint statement. Read the rest of EU to debut digital euro project this year? at NFCW.

Apple iPhone users travelling on public transport in the greater Paris region can now pay for daily, weekly and monthly travel passes and single-use tickets with Apple Pay and load them onto their physical Navigo transit card from their smartphone. Passengers access the service through the newly updated and rebranded app of regional transportation authority