David Heun

With Barclays at long last offering Apple Pay to its customers, Apple can now say it has a lineup of the U.K.'s largest banks supporting its mobile pay system.

Amazon's new global partner program focuses on working with online platform providers and developers, similar to how mainstream payment technology companies work with independent sales organizations to reach new clients.

Verifone is hoping to beat the payments disruptors at their own game, introducing a mobile point of sale terminal for quick-service businesses, small retail shops and cafés that integrates payments with other consumer services.

The migration to EMV chip cards in the U.S. has hit enough snags that some may wonder if it's better to let someone else smooth things out.

In one of its biggest splashes since first making Amazon Dash Button payments available nearly a year ago, the Seattle-based online shopping giant says it has tripled the number of brands that support its WiFi instant ordering system.

Russian retail banking software provider BPC Banking Technologies and a consortium of local banks plan to launch a national payment system.

Some debit card users are so loyal to their cards that many would go so far as to say using a PIN is more convenient — and less secure — than a using a signature, according to a recent report from Auriemma Consulting Group.

The attention around tokenization — replacing static account numbers with a one-time-use token — has been good for security but worrying for businesses that rely on a static identifier for future reference.

Square wants to ease the anxiety many small merchants may feel around no-shows when they accept online appointments for their businesses.

Marriott International's efforts to acquire Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide — combining two major hotel chains that have suffered data breaches — should force both chains to reexamine the way they handle sensitive payment card data.

Credit card issuer MBNA has confirmed it will be among the first to offer its customers the Android Pay mobile wallet in the U.K., which Google is expected to launch in the coming months.

If Apple Pay has had trouble finding new markets overseas, perhaps it's no surprise that reports are surfacing of another new frontier: E-commerce.

Boku has expanded its carrier billing mobile payment service into three European markets via a new model that involves handing control over to mobile network operators.

JPMorgan Chase has partnered with Starbucks on a branded, prepaid rewards card, expanding its relationship with the coffeehouse chain.

Despite the steady march of progress in digital and mobile payments, consumers are likely to continue writing paper checks regularly for five or more years, Fiserv says. Paper checks are also entrenched in small business operations.

Starbucks is prepared to launch a new Starbucks Rewards Prepaid Card with partner JPMorgan Chase, further strengthening its ongoing relationship with the bank.

With its reputation for welcoming software developers with open arms solidified two years ago through its acquisition of Mercury Payment Systems, Vantiv Inc. is looking for the next way it can attract and enable innovation.

Apple's newest iPhone, a throwback to the smaller models it sold in previous years, is designed to maintain Apple Pay's momentum as it lands in new regions.

If an independent sales organization wants to convert a merchant to the most current faster payment technologies, the ISO itself must practice what it preaches.

In a move that counters Sweden's reputation as a country that encourages its citizens to not use cash in the payments network, The National Bank of Sweden is asking regulators to make access to cash a legal right.