global mobile payments growing fast

Our news roundup today shows why mobile matters in the fast-moving world of mobile payments. It’s only available on Android so far, but Google lets you send and receive money via Gmail with no fees. India’s Paytm launched its mobile payments platform in Canada letting users pay bills. Samsung’s Galaxy S8 may soon let you pay with a touch, a wink or a smile using facial recognition for secure payments.

McDonald's mobile pay app testingFestival fans and event attendees will be able to pay with debit, credit cards and RFID tags on one device from Connect&GO. Now you can order and pay for your big Mac by mobile as McDonald’s tests its new order and mobile payments app in 29 CA cities. ExxonMobil adds Samsung Pay to its US network of 9,600 gas stations. Visa demo’d payments by NFC chip in sunglasses at Austin’s SXSW conference – a program it is piloting in Australia.

App Annie reports China surpassed the US in iOS app downloads and there’s no end to growth in sight with more than 700 million mobile users. iResearch says China’s third-party mobile payments more than doubled in 2016, reaching $5.5 trillion, nearly 50 times larger than the US. Ernst & Young reports 40% of Chinese consumers today use new payment methods, a huge and growing market.

You can now send and request money in Gmail on Android

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/14/you-can-now-send-and-request-money-in-gmail-on-android/Google Wallet has been integrated into Gmail on the web since 2013, but today Google is rolling out a new integration on mobile. Starting today, users of the Gmail app on Android will be able to send or request money with anyone, including those who don’t have a Gmail address, with just a tap.

The user experience has been designed to make exchanging money as easy as attaching a file, Google explains in its announcement. To access the new feature, you tap the attachment icon (the paperclip), then choose either send or request money, depending on your needs. A pop-up window appears where you can input the amount and add a note, and send.

The entire process takes place in the Gmail app — you don’t have to have Google Wallet installed. In addition, recipients can configure it so the money they receive through Gmail goes directly into their bank account.  There are no fees involved, notes Google. Via techcrunch.com

Paytm Canada App Launched for Android, iOS; Lets Users Pay Canadian and Indian Bills

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/paytm-canada-spotted-on-app-store-lets-users-pay-canadian-and-indian-bills-1670258After the app was spotted on the App Store earlier on Thursday, Paytm has officially announced it has entered Canada. The Paytm Canada app is now available for Android and iOS via Google Play and the App Store. Paytm will be available to users in Canada apart from India.

In a blog post, Paytm describes the functions of the new Paytm Canada app, “Today we’re starting a new and exciting journey by going global. Canadians will now be able to pay for their cell phone, cable, internet, electricity and water bills using the new Paytm Canada app. They can also use it to pay insurance and property taxes.”

For payment to Canadian billers, the app description notes that bill payments will be processed within 24 to 48 hours. For Indian postpaid mobile bill payments, payments will be processed within 2 to 3 hours. Other features of the Paytm Canada app include bill reminders that show up 10 days prior to the estimated due date. Also being touted is “100 percent service assurance”, where the app debits your money only after your bill is paid. Via gadgets.ndtv.com

The Galaxy S8 may use your face for secure mobile payments

https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/16/the-galaxy-s8-may-use-your-face-for-secure-mobile-payments/The S8 will apparently blend together fingerprint, iris and facial detection to verify a user for payment services — and Samsung is apparently already working with banks to get the feature adopted. The company’s flagship phones have offered facial recognition to unlock for years, and it’s gotten better at detecting faces as the Galaxy series has matured.

As Bloomberg notes, Apple is approaching facial recognition too. Although it doesn’t form any software features in existing iPhones, the company has picked up several facial recognition developers in the last few years. The Galaxy S8 will give Samsung the chance to make up for last year’s blunders, and get ahead of a highly anticipated iPhone that will mark 10 years of Apple’s smartphone series. The big Samsung event is in a few weeks — we won’t have wait long. Via engadget.com

New Mobile Payment System for Events Debuts at SXSW

http://www.bizbash.com/new-mobile-payment-system-for-events-debuts-at-sxsw/austin/story/33642/Badges or wristbands embedded with R.F.I.D. chips have become a popular method for transactions at events. Guests go online to link a credit card to their unique device and then simply swipe their wrist or badge at the event to pay for things such as concessions, merchandise, or a fund-raiser donation. A cashless system such as this is not only efficient, but data shows it also results in much higher spend-per-person than a traditional system that only accepts cash or credit cards.

“We do about 100 events a year now that use R.F.I.D. as the method of payment, and we’ve found when people are using an R.F.I.D. item as opposed to their credit card, debit card, or cash, they are spending an average of 30 to 40 percent more,” says Anthony Palermo, C.E.O. of Connect&Go, a Montreal-based company that provides R.F.I.D. solutions for festivals, conferences, and experiential marketing events. “People are just tapping to pay. It’s so much easier, and it keeps you within the experience of the event. It’s the cruise ship model.”

But Palermo says the experience has also shown that some people are not willing to link their credit card to an R.F.I.D. tag. So Monday at South by Southwest, Connect&GO and Mobeewave debuted a new mobile payment solution that accepts debit and credit cards and R.F.I.D. tags all on one device. Via bizbash.com

McDonald’s begins testing Mobile Order & Pay ahead of nationwide launch

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/15/mcdonalds-begins-testing-mobile-order-pay-ahead-of-nationwide-launch/McDonald’s began testing mobile ordering and payments on Wednesday in select U.S. markets — the first to receive the technology as part of a pilot test aimed at working out the kinks ahead of a full rollout across the U.S. and to other international markets by year’s end.

Initially, mobile ordering is available in 29 restaurants in Monterey and Salinas, California, through the company’s mobile application. The test will then expand to 51 more restaurants in Spokane, Washington on March 20, McDonald’s says.

By Q4 2017, McDonald’s plans to have mobile ordering live in its 14,000 U.S. restaurants. In addition, 6,000 others in Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Australia and China will receive the technology by year’s end, Reuters noted. Via techcrunch.com

ExxonMobil adds Samsung Pay

Exxon adds Samsung Pay US-based oil and gas company ExxonMobil has broadened its mobile payment options to include Samsung Pay. According to the company, customers with compatible Samsung Galaxy devices can now buy fuel and car washes using Samsung Pay via ExxonMobil’s Speedpass mobile payment app.

To make a purchase with this option, consumers link their Samsung Pay account to their Speedpass app and select Samsung Pay as the desired payment method. From there, they can purchase fuel across more than 9,600 Exxon and Mobil retail stations that are Speedpass enabled.

At the point-of-sale, customers select the pump number on the mobile app, authorize the transaction with a fingerprint or personal identification number, and choose a grade of fuel at the pump. Via thepaypers.com

You can now pay for things with your sunglasses because what could go wrong

http://mashable.com/2017/03/14/visa-payment-sunglasses-unveiled/#GQDMWOPDGOqEAnnounced at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, but deployed down under at the World Surf League Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast competition in Australia on Tuesday, Visa’s wearable prototype puts mobile payment capabilities on your face.

The prototype sunglasses come with a built-in NFC chip, connected to a re-loadable, pre-paid card and  can be used on virtually any contactless payment reader.

“Our intent here is to demonstrate what we all know is coming: Anything that is a connected device or can carry a chip can be a payment device, as well,” said Sam Shrauger, SVP of Digital Solutions at Visa, Inc. For now, though, Visa has no plans to expand the payment sunglasses program beyond the pilot in Australia. Via mashable.com

China Exclusive: Chinese mobile app economy growing on fast track

global mobile payments growing fastChina’s booming mobile app market will continue to expand with rising smart device penetration and mobilization of more traditional businesses, according to a leading industry observer. “China’s app economy is accelerating in growth, putting it within striking distance of Japan and the United States,” Bertrand Schmitt, CEO and co-founder of App Annie, told Xinhua.

Research from App Annie, an app market data provider, showed that China surpassed the United States in iOS App Store downloads in 2015 and claimed the top spot for iOS App Store revenue.

Chinese companies took eleven spots in the global top 52 publishers list, with Tencent and NetEase ranking first and third respectively for iOS and Google Play overall revenue, according to the latest report from the company. Via news.xinhuanet.com

Mobile payment boom raises question: what will die first, cash or passwords?

According to the latest report released by domestic consulting company iResearch, the market scale of China’s third-party mobile payment more than doubled in 2016 compared with the previous year, reaching $5.5 trillion in total. The number is nearly 50 times larger than the market scale in the US.

Experts attributed the skyrocketing growth of China’s mobile payment to late development, saying the lack of a credit card culture has accelerated the switch from cash to mobile payment and the emergence of third-party payment enterprises and mobile payment platforms have pushed the growth rate further.

But the fast-paced development has also raised security concerns. Hakan Persson, CEO of Sweden-based Precise Biometrics Inc, a fingerprint authentication solution provider, said the rise in mobile payments increases security and fraud risks.

“As digital payments and e-commerce keep rising, 60 per cent of all transactions will be made through biometric authentication in 2020,” added Persson, citing a report by information company Acuity Research. “The total shipment volume of mobile devices with fingerprint scanners was about 600 million last year, up 100 per cent year-on-year, and the number is expected to reach one billion,” he added. Via nationmultimedia.com

Growing demand for mobile payment services across Asia

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/growing-demand-for-mobile-payment-services-across-asiaThe mainland is today the world’s largest – and fastest-growing – market for proximity mobile payments. China had 469 million mobile payment users last year, a 30 per cent increase compared to 2015, and representing two-thirds of all mobile phone users in the country, according to state-backed China Internet Network Information Centre.

Last year in particular is the inflection point where Chinese consumers flocked to pay by phone, leaving the wallet in the bag. While online payments grew from 12 trillion yuan (S$2.4 trillion) to 19 trillion yuan last year, mobile payments soared from the same base to 38.6 trillion yuan, a jump of more than 200 per cent, said Beijing-based BigData Research.

China’s embrace of fintech has put even Singapore to shame: 40 per cent of Chinese consumers are today using new payment methods compared to just 4 per cent in Singapore, said a November report by Ernst & Young and DBS Bank. Via straitstimes.com