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Pay by selfie with Mastercard, mobile banking to overtake net banking, connected car safety concerns, Cryptographers Fight FBI on Mobile Security and more…

Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news you may have missed, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global Mobile News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.


 Global News Stories

selfieMasterCard will approve purchases by scanning your face

CNN

This fall, MasterCard will start experimenting with a new program: approving online purchases with a facial scan.

At checkout, you’ll be asked to hold up your phone and snap a photo. MasterCard’s thinking? It’s easier than remembering a password.

Currently, customers can set up something called “SecureCode,” which requires a password when shopping online. This stops credit-card-number-stealing hackers from actually using your card on the Web. It was used in 3 billion transactions last year, the company said.

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35 per cent of Millennials Want to Spend More via Mobile

Mobile Marketing Magazine

Over a third of millennials would like to buy more via their smartphones, but find it hard to do so, revealing the scope of revenues brands are losing out on through poor mobile optimisation.

According to the study by Social Len Research, 60 per cent of millennials feel of the mobile ads they see are relevant or useful, while only nine per cent feel that companies offer a great experience once they click through.

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N700bn Mobile Money Transfers Made in Nigeria, Says CBN

This Day Live

Nigeria has recorded total transactions of N700 billion through the mobile money banking system since 2012, a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) official said in Abuja on Tuesday.

The Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, CBN, Mr Dipo Fatokun, made the statement in a presentation at a workshop on Mobile Money and Emerging Payment System to lawyers.

Fatokun, who was represented by a Deputy Director in the department, Mr. Jimoh Itopa, said the apex bank had licensed 23 mobile money operators in the country. He put the value of mobile money transactions conducted monthly at about N30 million.

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Surge in mobile banking may help it overtake net banking in 2 years: HDFC Bank Executive

The Economic Times

Mobile phone banking could pip internet banking as the preferred mode of operating bank accounts in two years, according to a senior HDFC Bank executive.
As of now, there is a huge gap between transactions through internet banking and the mobile banking platform in terms of value and volumes.Over the past one year, transactions through mobile banking have seen a steep rise with wider use of smartphones and availability of highspeed data at competitive rates.

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Nurses tap their own smartphones to improve care, boost efficiency

Fierce Mobile Health

A majority of nurses who responded to a recent survey say they are using their own tablets, mobile phones and other similar tools daily at work.

While some providers are deploying health apps to their nursing staffs, many nurses are finding the tools on their own through online searches, the survey, conducted by InCrowd, finds. For the report, the company surveyed 241 nurses in May for the report, according to an announcement.

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Huawei and Vodacom launch e-Libraries programme in SA

PC Tech

Vodacom, Huawei, the Department of Basic Education and the Nelson Mandela Foundation launched their e-Libraries programme in South Africa.

The move is aimed at helping advance literacy development, one of the most critical elements in the country’s education value chain,

The programme is an educational content application, which is freely available on Huawei tablets at the 61 Vodacom Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resource centres that are situated across the country.

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Experts warn Apple and Google’s in car technology raises ‘serious public safety questions’

Daily Mail

Experts have warned of the potential safety risks of making cars too hi-tech.

They say that smart dashboards being developed by manufacturers and phone firms like Google and Apple could prove too much of a distraction to drivers.  Car companies say outsized dashboard displays that behave more like smart phones will boost revenue and attract buyers. They insist the new screens will make driving less dangerous, because of well-integrated voice controls and large touch screens that will keep drivers from fumbling with more dangerous mobile phones.

But the increasingly elaborate screens have also sparked a broad debate about how much technology is appropriate in a car.

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Cryptographers Fight FBI on Mobile Security

Wall Street journal

The U.S. government just lost highly classified security-clearance data to foreign hackers. Do Americans really want to trust Washington with the keys to their text messages? That’s the question asked by Internet-security pioneers in a 33-page white paperpublished Tuesday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The cryptographers argue that making sure federal agents could decipher every WhatsApp message and unlock every iPhone, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation would like, would be technically impractical while exposing consumers and businesses to data breaches.

“These proposals are unworkable in practice, raise enormous legal and ethical questions, and would undo progress on security at a time when Internet vulnerabilities are causing extreme economic harm,” the cryptographers write.

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Pre-Crime Startup BioCatch Authenticates Users Via Touch And Your Phone’s Accelerometer

TechCrunch

It’s not often that I write about a startup being granted a patent. However, the latest successful filing from Israeli startup BioCatch caught my attention. Essentially it offers a way for app developers to authenticate users based on how they interact with their phone’s touch screen and accelerometer.

Backed most recently by $10 million in Series A funding led by OurCrowd, and Blumberg Capital, the company has developed what it calls “behavioural biometric authentication and threat detection” technology — tech that helps banks and e-commerce companies stop online fraud before it happens.

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Smartphones aren’t selling like they used to (it’s an Android thing)

Cnet

After a strong end to 2014, the smartphone market seems to have taken a turn.

Samsung warned on Monday that it would miss Wall Street’s expectations for the second quarter, an indication of a rough start for its flagship Galaxy S6 smartphone. Also on Monday, HTC reported that it has swung back into the red. Last week, Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi said its sales pace for the year has slowed significantly.

Their results underscore the challenges that all smartphone vendors — with the potential exception of Apple — face as consumers upgrade their smartphones less frequently and are less impressed by newer devices’ incremental improvements.

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Mark ZuckerbergGovernment panel on Net Neutrality against Internet.org, ok with Airtel Zero

Times of India

NEW DELHI: A DoT panel on net neutrality is learnt to have opposed projects like Facebook’s Internet.org, which allow access to certain websites without mobile data charges, while suggesting that similar plans such as Airtel Zero be allowed with prior clearance from Trai.

The panel has stated however that “collaborations between telecom operators and content providers that enable such gate-keeping role to be played by any entity should be actively discouraged”, sources said.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had directed the Department of Telecom (DoT) to form a panel on net neutrality and give its recommendation on the matter.

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Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.

MEF