THE LIST Teams With BitBay Pay; Monese Rolls Out Apple Pay Support

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes U.A.E.-based THE LIST bringing crypto payments to its platform. Monese added support for Apple Pay for personal cards in the U.K. as well as France, Wirecard joined forces with Cimple Marketing for an Alipay implementation at Stockmann-operated department stores in The Baltics as well as Finland and  Upco International Inc. plans to have UpcoPay running for European and Canadian users by this spring.

Dubai eCommerce company THE LIST is teaming up with BitBay Pay to roll out digital currency payments on its mobile platform, the company said in an announcement. Through the offering, shoppers can tap into the company’s app to make payments through bitcoin. And, through a “second step,” consumers can pay with more than 20 digital currencies like ripple, ether and litecoin. THE LIST Founder and CEO Andreas Skorski said in the announcement, “Due to the growth of e-commerce and the high mobile penetration digital payment solutions have experienced significant growth. We see cryptocurrency as an enduringly relevant currency, not just a trend.”

On another note, Monese said in a blog post that Apple Pay has come to personal Monese cards in France as well as the U.K. The company said that users can tap into the offering to make payments in-store, on the web or in iOS apps with an iPhone SE or higher model. (In addition, the company noted the feature is available on some iPads as well as the Apple Watch.) The company said the post, “We live in a world increasingly reliant on digital and contactless payments. With this in mind, we’re excited to be enhancing our smart, simple banking experience with integrated payment solutions like Apple Pay.”

And Wirecard joined forces with Cimple Marketing to bring Alipay to Stockmann-operated department stores in The Baltics as well as Finland, Wirecard said in an announcement. As it stands, Wirecard said that Alipay has over 100 million transactions per day as well as 1 billion active users. It also claims that retailers “can expect an increase of more than 350% in the amount spent by Chinese tourists within one year” by implementing the digital payment option. Baltics IT Development Manager Andres Alango said in the announcement that, through the effort, “we look forward to differentiating ourselves from other retailers by providing an even better customer experience, and welcoming even more Chinese tourists to our stores in the future.”

In other news, Upco International Inc. plans to have UpcoPay up and running for European and Canadian users by the spring of this year, the company said in an announcement. The company described the offering as an “advanced eWallet system” that has an app on the front end and software to control tracking as well ass reporting, among other functions, on the back end.  Upco International Chairman of the Board Andrea Pagani said in the announcement, “in a rapidly evolving world, technology has reinvented commerce, and digital purchases are becoming more and more mobile based, altering the role the payments industry plays in the transaction. We strongly believe that UpcoPay will very soon play a key role in this evolution.”