Dear Subscriber,

You walk into a store, pick up a drink, walk out and get on with the rest of your day.
The police don’t get called and you haven’t stolen anything.

No, this is not the beginning to a riddle, but rather the beginning of the future.

In recent times payments have been getting reviewed at all levels: the likes of Wirecard are treating payments not as processes but as stories, Amazon knuckling down to emphasise the ‘Trust’ factor, but a fast-rising school of thought is whether payments need to be not reviewed but actually removed. In our lead article, we speak to Steffan Aquarone, CEO and founder of Droplet, about his company’s aim to do just that.

Elsewhere, we take a look at the most recent batch of startups graduating from the Barclays Rise Accelerator, including one company that wants to make any wearable device a contactless payment device! Staying on the theme of contactless payments, Nets, the payments provider in the Nordic region, has partnered with Japanese payments scheme, on bringing mobile payments to the Danish nation debit card, Dankort.

Finally, we bring you another taste from our special Payments {R}evolution Magazine. This feature focusses on the password and whether it has a place in the convenience-first world of today.

Enjoy!

In early April we spoke to Steffan Aquarone, the founder and CEO of Droplet, a startup that lets users make hands-free payments at frequently-visited venues, about the excitement surrounding frictionless payments and the importance of ‘making payments human’.

As consumer behaviour evolves in line with technological advances, the ability to use cards at unattended terminals is becoming a demand from consumers worldwide. Here, the results of an exclusive survey from TNS reveal more about this exciting trend.

2014 saw the introduction of payments being authenticated by fingerprint sensors with platforms such as Apple Pay and this emergence caused biometrics to catapult into the banking industry. Madhvi Mavadiya explores how traditional banks have transformed their systems for consumers and corporates to suit the growing hunger for convenience, security and digitalisation.

Earlier this month Barclays entered a commercial relationship with blockchain-based social payments service Circle, proving itself to be one of the more hands on traditional banks when it comes to supporting and working with the fintech startup space

Nets, the payments provider in the Nordic region, has partnered with Japanese payments scheme, on bringing mobile payments to the Danish nation debit card, Dankort.