David Heun

Building on a new mobile payment gateway that MasterCard developed for Egypt, an Egyptian bank last week launched the Phone Cash mobile wallet for consumers.

The various stakeholders in the U.S. payments system may need to put their differences aside to stay relevant as technology advances. But whether wide-scale collaboration is practical — or even possible — is open to debate.

Terrorists have put a bulls-eye on the U.S. financial system, including payments infrastructure, as a target that fits in with their plans to cripple the country's economy, says Juan C. Zarate, senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The assault on cash in India will continue through a new wallet offering from Mobikwik.

Corethree Ltd. has added Barclays' Pingit mobile checkout option to its mobile wallet for transportation services.

Afrocoin Mobile Money is launching a service that allows mobile phone users to send money to family members in Africa.

WorldPay US has entered an agreement to purchase Century Payments, building on a four-year partnership between the two payments companies.

As the U.S. payments industry advances in its migration to EMV-chip cards, some merchants perceive the EMV push as "a giant head-fake" to establish a foundation for mobile payments based on Near Field Communication technology.

As payments technology evolves, some are urging the Federal Reserve Board to take a leadership role in establishing guidelines and standards — whereas others are quick to argue against the notion.

The U.S. payments system must continue its push to overcome the challenges inherent in creating a near real-time retail payment option, says Sandra Pianalto, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

London-based electronic payments provider Ixaris will target the Middle East payments market through a partnership with e-commerce software provider 3omlti.

Consumers aren't letting go of their debit cards just yet, but an improving economy is motivating some of them to dust off their credit cards, MasterCard Inc. says.

U.S. banks and merchants face many obstacles in preparing for EMV chip-based cards at the point of sale — and the Web is no less reluctant to change.

Singapore-based F1Soft International will provide online and mobile money transfer software to Bangladesh Commerce Bank to help customers seeking ways to send money to family members in other countries.

The Isis Mobile Wallet initiative has suffered a setback with Capital One and Barclays pulling out of current testing, but the Isis venture has just as many issuers staying on to fuel its upcoming nationwide launch.

Smaller merchants wanting a foothold in the vast Internet now have the option to open a Heartland Online Storefront.

It's been five months since PayPal began disseminating its point of sale payment system to all Discover merchants, but First Data, a massive Atlanta-based payment processor, isn't in any rush to support the initiative.

The emergence of mobile payments may seem like a slow crawl now, but as younger consumers mature, they are going to demand more mobile services — and banks need to have services geared to that faster pace.

Revel Systems saw an opportunity in the power outage that halted the last Super Bowl. And it's an opportunity that has started to show results.

Misys and Swift have entered a partnership with the goal of improving the accuracy and consistency of payment transactions making their way through bank networks.