NFC

Cash is still the most popular payment method in the U.K., but contactless cards and mobile payments gained significant momentum over the past year, according to new data.

In recent years, companies have aggressively reinvented the card-reading dongle to fit their brands and absorb new technologies like EMV and NFC. But few have succeeded in doing away with the dongle entirely.

Bank of America will tokenize BofA cards across Mastercard and Visa portfolios in the U.S., supporting PayPal's mobile wallet.

Mobile wallets have failed to excite many consumers, but Canada has an extreme case of paralysis underscoring the stark need for ongoing incentives to get consumers to change their payment habits.

Mobile QuickPass NFC payments are accepted at nearly a half million point-of-sale terminals outside of China, and QuickPass QR code payments have been available in Hong Kong and Singapore for about a month.

Punchh is betting NFC will be widespread, and it hopes to get an edge with clients with a direct connection to Apple Pay, enabling consumers to simultaneously earn and redeem restaurant loyalty program points.

Due in part to the U.S.'s lackluster adoption of contactless cards, mobile wallets had a slow and difficult time gaining hold among consumers and merchants that were unfamiliar with the tap-and-pay process or didn't have the right technology. The opposite problem plagues Canada, where contactless cards are so widely used that mobile adds little value.

The latest news on Apple Pay only serves to reinforce that everything within Apple’s ecosystem is on its terms. For that reason, developers can never be complacent — if native iOS functionalities are core to a third party app’s business proposition, that provider is in for a rude awakening.

LG is officially throwing its hat into the mobile payments arena with the launch of LG Pay in Korea. Available only on the flagship LG G6 handset, its technology has a lot in common with Samsung Pay, but may not be much of a challenge to its rival if it should come to the U.S.

Contactless cards are becoming the global standard for most markets except in the U.S., where tap-to-pay card distribution lags far behind the rest of the world, according to the Smart Payment Association (SPA), a Munich-based organization that tracks global card manufacturer data.