Mobile wallets

Vodacom's Tanzania M-Pesa wallet is expanding its money transfer services throughout Africa, enabling more than 200 countries globally to now send money to and receive it from Tanzania.

More than a dozen large European banks plan to launch a payment system that would rival U.S. payment companies and technology firms, an idea that hasn’t worked in the past but may have a better chance given the current global health, economic and political crises.

To get an edge in the rapidly expanding earned wage access market, Branch is extending mobile contactless capabilities to its Mastercard debit account by adding Apple Pay and Google Pay to its app.

Latin America is seeing a surge in digital wallet adoption as governments seek ways to disburse coronavirus aid to vulnerable citizens, and consumers look for safe alternatives to cash.

SolarisBank and Visa have provided the technology to enable Vivid Money to launch its mobile banking app in Germany with virtual cards and cash-back rewards.

Paysafe is expanding the reach of its Skrill digital wallet to U.S. consumers who will be able to use it to send funds to 18 countries.

The modern mobile wallet no longer uses a card as a crutch. Instead, it sees it as an additional product that can add revenue from interchange, lending and loyalty.

People who order groceries for delivery may be using digital payments or a plastic card to pay for their food, but the person picking up the groceries may be making a separate payment at the point of pickup — and in the process, influencing the global shift toward contactless payments.

Many companies are postponing product rollouts until the economy improves, but the Samsung Money debit card could be better suited for spending habits during the coronavirus pandemic.

Criminals developing EventBot malware built it to take advantage of businesses and humans turning to mobile banking and payments in the current coronavirus crisis — but also to update itself on the fly to become more insidious in the future.