An official statement from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has noted that the issuance of Egyptian banknotes rose to EGP 264.1billion (US$37.9bn) during the 2012/2013 financial year, an increase of EGP 56.7 billion (US$8.15bn). It was noted in the statement that government expenditure led to an increase in the budget deficit, after reaching EGP…
In an effort to restore some of the value of the Icelandic krona, entrepreneur Baldur Friggjar Odinsson has created Auroracoin, a virtual currency similar to the Bitcoin system, and intends to distribute digital coins to all 333,000 Icelandic citizens. The Auroracoin website describes the virtual currency as: “a cryptocurrency for Iceland. It is based on litecoin…
According to a report by Giesecke & Devrient, the use of pre-paid payment cards is quickly increasing in India. There are around 17 million pre-paid payment cards currently in use, compared to 316 million credit and debit cards, but the gap is steadily decreasing. There are many people in India who do not have an…
On Monday 3 February, the Hiroshima based coin-manufacturing department of Japan’s Finance Ministry resumed the production of aluminium ¥1 coins for the first time in four years. This is thought to be in preparation for the consumption tax increase which will occur on April 1, 2014. A shortage of ¥1 coins is expected amongst retailers…
During 2013 Poland made almost 840 million contactless payments using Visa cards, making it the top country in Europe for Visa contactless payment transactions. There was an 11.3% growth in contactless payments, almost double the increase in the number of payments in general, including ATM withdrawals, which was 6.8%. Source: Warsaw Business Journal
Transport for London (TFL) has announced that London buses will no longer accept cash payments from this summer, though the exact date is yet to be confirmed. Contactless payments using cards were first introduced in December 2012 and since its introduction there has been a steady increase in the number of contactless payment transactions. Currently,…
For the first time, the Bank of England has allowed the £1 million and £100 million banknotes to be filmed. The United Kingdom’s Channel 4 news program filmed the banknotes during a news article regarding Scottish Independence. The banknotes are a “physical manifestation of the relationship between the Bank of England and the Scottish banking…
El Corte Inglés, the Spanish department store, has installed thousands of contactless payment terminals for customers to make contactless card or mobile phone payments. With 5,200 of its terminals already replaced with the new Visa payment machines, the group predict that 60% of its terminals will have the new technology by the end of 2014.…
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank has made mobile payment technology available to its customers through the release of the new CommBank app and CommBank PayTag NFC sticker for iPhone. This follows the launch of the new CommBank apps and stickers for Android and Windows 8 platforms which were released in December. The technology is also in-built in…
The Royal Canadian Mint’s digital payment technology MintChip™ was demonstrated last week during the 2014 National Retail Federation’s Annual Convention and EXPO. Though MintChip™ is still in its research and development phase, Ingenico, a leading provider of payment solutions based in Paris, introduced the first proof-of-concept of the MintChip™ payment technology on a POS retail…