Author: Rebecca

The CNVA has announced that it is preparing to roll out mpayments across the country.

A new announcement from the Canadian National Vending Alliance (CNVA) included the roll-out of vending machine mobile payments nationwide. The CNVA intends to launch machines compatible with smartphone transactions throughout Canada.

In order to complete that roll-out, the CNVA has been working with PayRange and its BluKey dongle.

The new partnership with PayRange has made it possible for the BluKey dongle to be installed in existing machines. In this way, contactless vending machine mobile payments can be accepted via the PayRange app. That mobile application accepts all major credit cards. It is available to both iOS and Android device users.

Steve Tremblay, the president of CNVA, stated: “with more people becoming increasingly cashless, we realized we needed a mobile payment solution to bring to all our machines.”

This addition of vending machine mobile payments has been deemed a prudent step ahead.

After all, USA Technologies vending machine solutions provider in the United States recently released interesting research findings. They indicated that revenue increases were possible through self-service POS terminals for which Apple Pay functionality has been properly advertised. This indicates that there is a growing interest in mobile payments among consumers.

While there have been many barriers in the way of adopting mobile payments, consumers are starting to show interest. Those invested in this market hope consumers will see the convenience of mobile wallets in these self-service areas. This could lay the foundation for broader use after consumers become more accustomed to using their smartphones to pay.

Still, it is important to recognize that Apple Pay remains the best known mobile wallet in the world. Compared to its rivals, it has managed a certain degree of popularity. The launch of the vending machine mobile payments occurs at a time when far fewer consumers have downloaded – or even heard of – the PayRange app. It will be interesting to see what percentage of consumers will be drawn in by the mpayments option when they decide to make their next purchase from a vending machine. Particularly as exact change is increasingly inconvenient.

In China nearly two thirds of all shoppers are now regularly using wallet apps to complete purchase transactions.

A new report revealed that almost two out of every three Chinese consumers use smartphone mobile payments regularly. The report was aimed at better understanding the country’s internet development. China Internet Network Information Center conducted the study and revealed the results of its data analysis.

The report showed 64.5 percent of Chinese smartphone owners use mobile payments to buy products.

That figure represents about 424.5 million people in China. These figures are as up to date as June 2016, which represents some very recent insight into this smartphone mobile payments trend. It also shows an increase in usage of 7 percent since December.

Aside from mobile wallet use, the report on the study also stated that there are 710 million internet users in China. This is nearly double the entire population of the United States. An estimated 656 million internet users connect to it via mobile devices.

The rapid growth in smartphone mobile payments is credited to the quick development of the necessary infrastructure.

The ecosystem needed in order to implement mobile wallets was adopted very swiftly in China, said the report. Recently, Samsung Pay and Apple pay have also entered the mobile payments market in China. This has given the sector’s growth a shot in the arm.

A rising number of manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei launch NFC technology enabled smartphones. The result is a greater compatibility with many mobile payments tech requirements. Near field communication is the technology behind many large mobile wallets such as Apple Pay. The more consumers have NFC enabled smartphones, the greater the ability to actually use the mobile payment apps.

According to IDC research firm senior analyst, Michael Yeo, “Mobile payments have become a part of life in China now, driven by a combination of factors including e-commerce and mobile commerce, and services such as taxi-hailing apps.”

Yeo also explained that the success of smartphone mobile payments is as great as it is as the Chinese market is less influenced by legacy payment methods. Credit cards and banking cards are not as ingrained in Chinese society. Moreover, many people in the country use the internet exclusively over mobile devices.