David Heun

At 800 stores, the Checkers/Rally's fast-food chain may seem overshadowed by giants like McDonald's. But to CardFree, merchants of Checkers' size are ideal customers for its mobile payments technology.

Oberthur Technologies is joining the Fast Identity Online Alliance as a member of the FIDO board of directors.

Gun sellers, medical marijuana shops, pornography sites, bitcoin exchanges and mug-shot galleries share a common stigma — many payments companies refuse to do business with them, whether or not they run afoul of the law.

Visa plans to parlay its investment in Near Field Communication technology in Australia through a venture with the top telcos and numerous handset manufacturers to establish contactless payments.

Visa Europe has secured the services of Conferma to provide its issuing banks and payments partners with technology that can provide virtual account numbers for business travel customers.

As Isis prepares for its nationwide launch, it is getting marketing help from a significant merchant: McDonald's.

Jumio Inc. has expanded its ID scanning technology to support Apple and Samsung's digital wallets, enabling scanned payment cards to be used within other mobile apps.

Less than two months after launching Evolve Money for cash-paying consumers to pay and track bills online or through a smartphone, PreCash Inc. has its first wireless carrier supporting the app.

Mobile payments startup Pokkt has raised $500,000 in its first round of funding, allowing the company to eye expansion from India to other regions of southeast Asia.

Merchants are often wary of investing in a new point of sale terminal when even newer technology may be just around the corner. Spire Payments aims to ease their concerns by offering a developer-friendly system designed to adapt quickly.

Walgreen Co.'s new Balance Financial Prepaid MasterCard will be at the core of a series of financial services the retailer plans to offer over the next few months.

London-based Proxama Plc will help mobile payment venture Isis develop its mobile wallet app for use on Blackberry 10 devices.

First Data's OfferWise platform, which allows consumers to obtain discounts linked to a pre-enrolled payment card, is now linked to Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Tyfone Inc. has added Acculynk’s Payzur person-to-person payment capability to the mobile banking application it supports at Boulder Valley Credit Union.

Nearly a year after making its mobile card reader available in Canada, Square Inc. has decided to locate a permanent office in the country.

South Korean mobile payment provider Danal will partner with biometric technology provider Crucialtec to develop an app for mobile payments in South Korea, and eventually in China and the U.S.

Mobile commerce provider CashStar Inc. has named Ben Kaplan as its new president and CEO.

MasterCard has become the first payment network to join the Fast IDentity Online Alliance, which aims to improve online payment security through the use of common technology across browsers, applications and servers.

Online payment provider BlueSnap will provide its global payments gateway software to Voxy, a New York-based company that offers language-learning courses online and through smartphones.

The only way for the payments industry to thwart future hackers is to create a system that can adapt quickly to unanticipated threats – but many companies still struggle with the costs of handling their basic security needs.