 | | | Dear Subscriber, Following a less than stellar week for Apple, in which its launch of Apple Pay in China did not go as smoothly as planned, Samsung decided to further pile on the misery by claiming that its own mobile payment service now has more than five million registered users (it is estimated by third-parties that Apple Pay’s users are around the three million mark). To add insult to injury, the South Korean company also revealed its plans for Samsung Pay’s global expansion with China being selected as the first new market. In other mobile payment news, BlackBerry continues to push the FinTech angle by integrating BBM with Barclays’ Pingit.
Elsewhere, People’s Card Services president shares his thoughts on the prepaid education gap. Finally, adoption of contactless payments continues to boom in Europe, with payments made using Mastercard and Maestro surpassing 1bn in 2015.
| | In the perennial war of mobile payment services, Samsung appears to be winning some of the recent battles, whilst Apple seems to be hit with problem after problem with the |  | | Banking the underbanked, helping people manage their debt and take greater control of their finances: the benefits of prepaid are manifold. Yet there’s still a lot of education that needs to happen if consumers and businesses are to really take advantage of the technology. That’s according to the president of Canada’s People’s Card Services at least. |  | | BlackBerry has partnered with Pingit, Barclays’ mobile payment app that allows instant money transfers using phone numbers. |  | | Adoption of contactless payments continues to boom in Europe, with payments made using Mastercard and Maestro surpassing 1bn in 2015. According to a new report from Mastercard, that’s a 150% uptick in transactions compared to a year earlier. |  | | Tired of squinting at your screen to enter payment details in a poorly-optimised booking form? UK-based budget airline Easyjet wants to make that a thing of the past for its customers, teaming up with payment identification firm Jumio to let users enter their details by simply scanning in their credit or debit card inside the app. |  | | | |