Discover is to begin issuing contactless payment cards “for most” of its Discover It and Discover More cardmembers “who need cards reissued or replaced” this month and, from December, will start issuing contactless cards to new Discover cardholders. “Contactless technology has become increasingly popular with our cardmembers and more accepted by merchants worldwide, and we […]

Tourists visiting China can now use a version of Alipay designed specifically for international travellers to make mobile payments during their trip, Alipay has announced. “Starting immediately, visitors can download Alipay for both iOS and Android devices, and register for the International Version of the app with their overseas mobile phone number to access the

“My goal is to guide the NFC Forum in a slight pivot to increase focus on doing whatever is necessary to enable NFC technology to deliver a consistently positive user experience, however it is used,” Mike McCamon, the new executive director of the NFC Forum, has told NFC World. “Over the last 15 years the

A new open banking system which is set to cut transaction fees by 90% has now entered pilot testing, Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has announced. “During the pilot-run period, the government will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the system and make adjustments if necessary before opening the system to fintech firms on December 18,”

“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. “We aim to expand the UPI [Unified Payments Interface] base to 500 million users in the next three years,” he added. Read

“There were 16bn payment cards in circulation at the end of 2018, up by 10% since a year earlier… The largest scheme worldwide is UnionPay, which accounted for 45% of cards in circulation at the end of 2018… Visa (including Visa, Visa Electron, V Pay and Interlink) made up 20% of the world’s cards… Mastercard

“To start using the new Euro Card feature, Starling account holders, both business and personal, must open a euro account… Once it’s open, they can transfer money from their business account to their euro account with a single tap in the app… Their existing debit card can [then] be switched on (in-app) to operate in

“Delhi Metro is looking to be the first metro line in India to link biometrics to smart cards, in a bid to offer concessions to riders… Once the new biometric-based ticketing system is installed, the smart card will be linked to an individual users’ credentials, and the card will no longer be transferable.” Read the

Apple Pay revenue and transactions have “more than doubled year-over-year with over 3bn transactions in the September quarter, exceeding PayPal’s number of transactions and growing four times as fast,” Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed. Apple generated “all-time record revenues from payment services” during the quarter, Cook explained during the iPhone maker’s Q4 2019 earnings

Public transportation operator First Group has begun a pilot of a new mobile ticketing service that uses host card emulation (HCE) to let customers with an Android NFC phone purchase a bus ticket, provision it to Google Pay and then use their smartphone to tap an on-board contactless reader when they board a bus. The