David Heun

With Apple Pay gaining momentum, Google Inc. reportedly is planning to relaunch a new version of its wallet in late May at the Google I/O, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Gemalto, which manufactures SIM cards and EMV chips, is investigating a report that U.S. and U.K. spy agencies hacked into the company's network and stole mobile phone encryption keys, a technology also used to secure card data.

The apparent hack of Gemalto by U.S. and U.K. spies casts doubt over several security measures vital to the payments industry as it embraces chip cards and adopts digital payments.

Banks and processors often avoid small direct response businesses out of risk concerns, though the category fits right into EVO Payments International's multi-media sweet spot.

Cloud-based mobile payment provider P97 Networks Inc. will partner with Fiscal Systems Inc. to enable gas pumps and station convenience stores to provide customers smart-phone based payment options.

Visa Inc. has opted to transfer its card transaction processing in Russia to a local payment system rather than pay a security deposit to do business in the country.

Visa is putting a more global push behind Visa Checkout than it has in any previous attempt to create a universal digital wallet for e-commerce.

Encryption has become a political hot potato for the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council as it compiles a list of validated encryption vendors and services - and leaves off some companies that say they deserve to be recognized as secure.

Starbucks' decision to support Apple Pay within the coffee chain's mobile payment app seems like a natural alliance of two major forces in mobile payments, but it raises a significant question: Why not do the same with Square, with which Starbucks has much deeper ties?

Bluefin Payment Systems is making point-to-point encryption available to large merchants that use Heartland Payment Systems as a processor, a key move as U.S businesses grapple with the migration to chip cards.

Mobile payment company iZettle is countering the idea that EMV compliance increases merchant expense by offering a free version of its mobile chip-and-PIN card reader.

It would have to be a payments network's worst nightmare — shutting down because of technical problems during its merchants' busy Valentine's Day weekend.

The theft of 80 million healthcare records will cost Anthem Blue Cross more than $100-million, and payment companies are also under threat since the incident may result in a spike in false card accounts.

Starbucks' decision to support Apple Pay within the coffee chain's mobile payment app seems like a natural alliance of two major forces in mobile payments, but it raises a significant question: Why not do the same with Square, with which Starbucks has much deeper ties?

Apple is well known for its "reality distortion field," a term applied to products that seem to appeal more because of Apple's aura of coolness than for the actual features of the product. But Apple Pay is not a case of Apple suddenly making mobile payments cool — consumers were already on board with the technology, even if they didn't know what to call it.

The Australian market has used EMV-chip cards for more than a decade, necessitating a very different approach to the mobile point of sale.

Visa Inc. now supports mobile geo-location technology to reduce transaction declines when consumers travel outside of their home area.

Fraudsters have taken to crowdfunding sites and other consumer-driven marketplaces in a new scheme designed to mask their use of stolen card data.

Thirty-four percent of merchants interviewed late last year for an Aite Group research report on EMV readiness had never heard of the U.S. migration to EMV-chip payment cards, despite the fast-approaching October 2015 deadline set by the card networks.

It may take years for most small merchants to accept EMV-chip cards in the U.S., but the country's ultimate goal of adopting the secure payment technology is coming together faster than what was seen in other EMV markets.