Apple has filed for a new patent regarding mobile payments. The patent suggests that Apple is moving towards the release of a new smartphone device capable of mobile payments, possibly within the iPhone6. It concerns a Secure Element (SE) within a mobile phone in which to store cardholder information, near-field-communication (NFC – which was omitted…
A study titled “Supercritical Fluid Cleaning of Banknotes” has been published in the Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research journal, where scientists claim they have created a method to “remove human grease, microbes and motor oil” from banknotes using supercritical fluid (“substances that maintain liquid and gas properties through manipulation of their temperature and pressure”). The…
BTCChina, China’s biggest Bitcoin exchange, has stopped accepting deposits in Chinese yuan. According to the company, the People’s Bank of China has spoken to a number of payment processors in China asking them to stop trading with Bitcoin exchanges by January 1, 2014. The BTCChina website posted the following note yesterday: “Dear BTC China users:…
On December 5, 2013, His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent presented De La Rue (DLR) with the “Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation” at its new state-of-the-art technology centre in Overton, Hampshire, UK. The award is the highest accolade for business success, and DLR has now received 12 such awards in total since the company…
A US patent application has been filed by JPMorgan Chase for an online payment system, resembling the Bitcoin virtual currency. The application says that its new payment system will compete with credit and debit cards for online transactions, creating “virtual cash” that will sit in an online wallet. Similarly to Bitcoin’s “blockchain” technology, each transaction…
This video is for a new San Francisco based start-up company called Coin. Their stated goal is to build products which “simplify, improve, and fit seamlessly into your life”. The new product, ironically known as Coin®, is a new digital payment card which stores the details of all your payment cards – meaning that you…
Bitcoin, the world’s first free market, decentralised global currency, has surpassed US$1,000 (£613) for the first time according to MTGox, one of the virtual currency’s main exchanges. Bitcoin has seen fast growth since its introduction in 2008, allowing users the ability to make payments from person to person anonymously. This has caused some criticism, with…
In a paper published in September by the Department of Computing, University of Surrey, UK, researchers demonstrated how contactless payments could be interferred with, effectively “eavesdropping” on the payment systems which use Near Field Communication (NFC) / Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to transfer payment data. With the required technology being increasingly made available, be…
Following on from the launch of Google Wallet in 2011, Google is now introducing a prepaid debit card which will allow customers to purchase goods at stores and withdraw cash from ATMs. Google Wallet is a smartphone app which allows users to make online payments and transfer funds to other users. It is a digital…
Fortress Paper Ltd, a pulp and security paper product specialist, has released a statement confirming the first use of their Durasafe® substrate in the new Moroccan 25 dirham banknote. Durasafe® is a high security composite produced at the Landqart Mill in Switzerland. Collaboration between Fortress and the Swiss National bank led to DuraSafe’s development and…