Credit card experts MBNA have announced that Android Pay™, by Google™, is now available to their customers as the app goes live in the UK today.

Android Pay will enable Android™ mobile users to seamlessly tap and pay with their phones at almost 460,000 contactless payment points in the UK, with more locations being added every day. It can also be used to make purchases in supported Android apps.

In order to further support both its clients’ banking needs and the bank’s existing business goals, Kingston, New York-based Rondout Savings Bank has partnered with Computer Services, Inc., a provider of end-to-end financial technology solutions, as its new core technology provider. Rondout Savings selected the CSI NuPoint® core solution, which enables the bank to broaden its technology offerings to not only achieve its own strategic objectives, but also maintain its dedicated focus on high-quality customer service.

57% of Britons are overestimating the financial return on their investments despite the fact that the majority of savers are still relying on low-interest savings accounts and ISAs, according to data from Wealthify, the online investment service.

Wealthify says that even though two thirds of Britons are now saving, the amounts saved are low, and many Britons are expecting to get by on a tight budget or struggling to afford bare essentials in later life.

Here are the facts which were gathered from a survey of 2,000 adults in the UK:

Blockchain, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies, continues to remain something of an enigma. Perhaps it is a little less mysterious today than it was six months ago, but you can’t deny that it has the financial services industry foxed. How does it work? How will it impact the industry? What can I do to ward off the blockchain bogey? Or, better yet, what can I do to turn it into a business ally? Since blockchain and cryptocurrencies work on the basis of customer anonymity, many have natural apprehensions, since identity is central to financial services.

China's Fujian Rural Credit (FJRC) has selected IBM (NYSE: IBM) for its new storage infrastructure to help to speed up deployment and raise efficiency of Internet- and cloud-based new financial applications, such as mobile banking, for the province's increasingly prosperous agricultural population.

 Interac Association/Acxsys Corporation (“Interac”), Canada’s domestic debit network, is pleased to announce the participation of additional financial institutions offering Apple Pay to Interac debit cardholders.  Interac debit cardholders from BMO Financial Group, Scotiabank and TD can now use Apple Pay on supported Apple devices to make easy, secure and private contactless debit transactions when shopping at hundreds of thousands of merchants coast-to-coast.

In the past three years, 100 million people have opened bank accounts for the first time in Africa. In China, there are 500 million people who are ‘newly banked’. In India, 187 million new accounts were opened in just one year on a governmental scheme. In the UK, around 100,000 people came into the banking stream, either for the first time or after a long break, in the last three years.

OT (Oberthur Technologies), a leading global provider of embedded security software products and services, today announced a key partnership with PCARD, the Saudi leader in smart card personalization services, to provide high quality secure payment solutions for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This Partnership will allow Banks of Saudi Arabia to provide innovative cutting-edge payment technology that will enhance and secure their customers’ shopping experience.

 Exaxe, an award-winning specialist solution provider for the life and pensions industry, has announced that Police Mutual has successfully gone live with its Admin Plus and Illustrate Plus solutions.

The renewable five year licence agreement marked the fourth of six licence sales for Exaxe over the past twelve months.