Alipay tests digital yuan; Amazon opens palm payments in New York

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Market economy

Ant Group is testing China's digital yuan, making it one of the first non-government-affiliated financial companies inside China to support the country's central bank digital currency.

Ant owns 30% of the online-only MyBank, which is conducting part of the test. Ant's Alipay app is also part of the beta, reports CNBC. Most of the digital yuan tests thus far have involved state-operated financial institutions that have disbursed digital currency to consumers who use it to make payments at participating retailers, such as Walmart and McDonald's.

WeChat Pay, China's other major private-sector digital wallet, has not been linked to the tests. The digital yuan is often viewed as a way to mitigate the digital wallets' influence, though the Chinese government insists this is not the case.

Alipay app

Palm reader

Following an initial rollout in Seattle, Amazon has deployed its new One checkout technology in New York at an existing checkout-free Amazon Go store in midtown, according to Engadget.

Amazon One, which debuted in 2020, allows shoppers to enter stores by waving their palms near a reader at the store's entrance. The palm is linked to the shopper's Amazon account, and once in the store consumers pick up items and leave without stopping at a point of sale terminal.

Amazon has also added checkout technology to shopping carts to address retail locations that are larger than the original Go stores.

Pandemic relief

London-based fintech Revolut has waived fees on international remittances to India for the next month as a gesture of support for the coronavirus outbreak. The firm is also encouraging donations to help the country's recovery.

The move is similar to other payment companies, such as Skrill, which dropped fees for inbound payments to Italy when it was a global hotspot for infections early in 2020.

Revolut hopes to maximize funds that are going toward medical care costs, or for equipment such as oxygen tanks, which are in short supply in India.

Biotech

Payment technology firm FSS and fintech Zwipe have partnered to develop cards that combine FSS' contactless technology with Zwipe's biometrics.

The Norway-based Zwipe, which relies on a network of card manufacturers to build a network, has entered into earlier collaborations with Gemalto and Visa.

Zwipe is positioning the FSS collaboration as a way to scale contactless cards with advanced authentication faster, using its network to accommodate the higher demand for low or no touch retail during the pandemic.

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