David Heun

Mastercard has entered a partnership with Sri Lanka telecommunications and mobile network operator Dialog Axiata PLC to support mobile payments on Dialog devices.

Despite years of advancements in mobile and online payments, the physical point of sale remains still ripe for disruption.

Nearly all new payments technologies strive to become as ubiquitous — and as secure — as possible. It's a goal that is harder than ever to achieve.

Visa has a deal to acquire the London-based bank payments provider Earthport for 198 million pounds ($250.6 million U.S.), pending approval from Earthport's shareholders.

The financial services and payments industries are aggressively trying to replace older systems with sleeker technology, but Swift has a separate goal in mind with the Global Payments Innovation system, or GPI.

On the surface, Ant Financial's reported discussions to acquire U.K.-based WorldFirst demonstrate a savvy business move to establish itself beyond the substantial market it controls in China. It also shows how far the Chinese payments giant is willing to go to resist the headwinds of U.S. policy.

China's Ant Financial, the Alibaba payments affiliate that operates Alipay, is reportedly in the advanced stages of talks to buy WorldFirst, an international payments provider based in London.

Online payments technology provider PayFort says its gateway is now accepting payments from Egypt's new national Meeza debit card scheme through the Central Bank of Egypt.

Former McKinsey & Company associate partner Liz Oakes has been named Mastercard's executive vice president of market development for the New Payments Platforms division.

Established as a transit-fare and small-value payment card in Hong Kong nearly 20 years ago, the Octopus Card is making a transition to a virtual prepaid card for online shopping.