“Piper Sandler just shared its 43rd semi-annual Generation Z survey with 7,100 US teens. It shows that Apple Pay dominates teens’ favorite payment apps, while iPhone and AirPods are an important part of their daily lives. Last April ,  88% of teens used to own an iPhone and 90% expected an iPhone to be their next phone. Both of these numbers were new all-time highs. The report also showed that 70% of US teens owned AirPods.”

“Comdata Inc., a FLEETCOR company and world leader in payment innovation, announced the evolution of its on-demand warehouse payment capabilities. The new solution digitizes and automates the capture and delivery of lumper payment receipts without driver interaction. It is the next generation of Comdata’s Comchek, which provides warehouse locations and fleets an efficient and modernized system to accept lumper payment without driver interaction through a mobile device.”

“American Express spent the last few years updating its mobile app to make more room for PayPal users. The newest revision enables customers to add their Amex card to PayPal by tapping a button within Amex’s mobile app, streamlining what had been a complex process, Amex announced Thursday. The so-called app-to-app functionality is available first on Android, with iOS coming soon, Amex said. Initially Amex executives weren’t sure they could pull off the app-to-app approach.”

“The sweeping measures would require restaurants to grant couriers access to bathrooms, set a minimum per-trip payment and a guarantee that couriers receive full tips, and allow the workers to set limits on their routes. The apps will also be required to pay couriers at least once a week, offer payment options that don’t require a bank account and will be prohibited from charging fees to workers to receive earnings.”

“Consumers in emerging markets are more likely to use a mobile app than a credit card for payments. That’s driving Boku’s move to unite mobile wallets and wireless operators to provide an interoperable cross-border alternative to Visa and Mastercard in the battle for unbanked consumers…Boku, which allows consumers to make payments via their mobile accounts, just launched M1ST, a network that connects more than 330 mobile payment services in 90 countries, with as many as 5.7 billion accounts, mostly in Asia, Latin America and Africa.”

“NatWest and Mastercard have announced the extension of their Pay by Bank app (PbBa) for secure online payments to mobile app users across NatWest Group brands Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and Coutts. This expansion comes after NatWest announced earlier in 2021tits migration of all its debit card portfolios to Mastercard. PbBa will be available to over 21 million UK mobile banking apps and will be free to use by the end of the year.”

“Boku Inc. (AIM: BOKU ) today announced the launch of the M1ST (aka Mobile First), the world’s largest mobile payments network. The M1ST Payments Network features an unrivalled 330+ mobile payment methods, including mobile wallets, direct carrier billing, and real-time payments schemes, reaching 5.7 billion mobile payment accounts in 90 countries – all through a single integration.”

“Giant Eagle has become the first grocery and convenience store retailer to enable PayPal and Venmo transactions at checkout, according to card and digital payment specialist Blackhawk Network. All 474 Giant Eagle supermarket and GetGo fuel/convenience store locations now accept PayPal online and Venmo mobile payments by allowing shoppers to scan QR codes at checkout, Pleasanton, Calif.-based Blackhawk said Thursday. The retailer partnered with Blackhawk to integrate the two digital payment options — PayPal owns the Venmo mobile payment service — in its stores.”

“Lightspeed, a commerce platform provider, has announced it will roll out its payments solution for hospitality merchants in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The solution offers mobile and contactless payments to allow businesses to process payments and manage their services from one platform, according to a press release. Lightspeed has already launched its services in Canada and the U.S., with plans to expand into the Asia-Pacific region in the coming months.”

“Denmark’s Danske Bank said on Wednesday it had agreed with OP Financial Group in Finland and a consortium of banks including DNB in Norway to merge their mobile payment platforms. The three mobile payment providers, MobilePay in Denmark, Pivo in Finland and Vipps in Norway, serve 11 million users and more than 330,000 shops and web shops.”

“A record number of women in South Asia now use mobile internet services, helping shrink the gender gap to 15% from 19% last year in low- and middle-income countries despite the onset of COVID-19, according to the fourth annual GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report published today. The gains in South Asia, which had the most significant gender gap in 2019 with women 50% less likely than men to use mobile internet, masked the stagnation in other regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Women in both regions now face a similar gender gap in mobile internet use – 37% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 36% in South Asia. The GSMA report showed an estimated 112 million more women started using mobile internet last year across low- and middle-income countries. Nevertheless, 234 million fewer women than men access mobile internet. Moreover, the underlying gender gap in mobile ownership persists and is proving difficult to close.”

“Huawai has gained a mobile payment license in China after buying Shenzhen Xunlian Zhifu Network from Shanghai Wo Rui Ou Information Technology Co., Ltd., China Securities Journal reported on Sunday… Huawei has been in the mobile payment sector for years, leveraging on UnionPay’s mobile payment service, Yunshanfu. The Huawei Pay app, which launched in 2016, allows Huawei phone owners to pay for goods online, as well as in bricks-and-mortar stores and for bus rides even with the connection turned off. The services are based on near field communication (NFC), a technology that hasn’t found many users in China, Zhang Yu, an analyst with iResearch, told KrASIA on Monday.”

“Pan-African fintech leader MFS Africa has today announced that it now reaches over 320 million mobile money wallets,[1] enabling a range of banks, telcos, money transfer operators, and other financial institutions interoperability at scale in Africa through a single integration point. Based on the 2021 State of the Industry report on Mobile Money released by the GSMA, this means that the company covers 60% of all mobile money wallets in sub-Saharan Africa. The MFS Africa partnership with Xoom , a PayPal service, which connects the diaspora in the UK, US, Canada and Europe to mobile wallets in Cameroon, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe via the MFS Africa Hub was also mentioned as one of the 12 key highlights for the industry in this year’s report. Since the launch of the services in December, Xoom has added Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique.”

“The GSMA has today published its annual ‘ State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money’ . It reveals a dramatic acceleration in mobile transactions during the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdown restrictions limited access to cash and financial institutions. The report found that the number of registered accounts grew by 13 per cent globally in 2020 to more than 1.2 billion – double the forecast. The fastest growth was in markets where governments provided significant pandemic relief to their citizens.”