Dear Subscriber,

No one does contactless payments quite like London. Gone are the days when early adopters were disappointed by the lack of NFC-enabled terminals. London has reached a point where contactless has become so ubiquitous, mainly down to the concerted effort made by TfL as well as supermarket chains, that these days we get quite annoyed when a pub or another frequently-visited venue doesn’t accept contactless cards.

This is backed up by research from Barclaycard, which found contactless transactions increased by 164% in value and 135% in volume last year alone compared with 2014.

In our other stories, Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Financial, which operates Alipay, has just closed the world’s biggest private funding round worth $4.5 billion. In the US, Visa is trying to sell the EMV life to everyone by releasing ‘Quick Chip’ software update that speeds up the transaction times. Back in Europe just under three quarters of European banks and retailers are planning to boost their spending on payment tech within the next two years amid mounting pressure in the market and demand for faster, more secure payments tech from customers. Exciting times.

Enjoy!

Following on from last week’s discussion about the future of cash, research from Barclaycard shows that contactless transactions increased by 164% in value and 135% in volume last year alone compared with 2014 and that its popularity will only continue to rise as more and more UK cities embrace technological innovations.

A few weeks ago we covered the ongoing adoption of EMV cards in the US and whether the big obstacles of cost, education and complexity were sufficiently addressed. It looks like this week Visa has released an update that could make using Chip cards in the States way more convenient.

Just under three quarters (71%) of European banks and retailers are planning to boost their spending on payment tech within the next two years amid mounting pressure in the market and demand for faster, more secure payments tech from customers.

The Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, which runs Alipay, the largest payment online payments service in China, has confirmed reports suggesting it closed a private fundraising round worth $4.5 billion. The company is now valued at $60 billion, just two shy of Uber.

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