Evan Schuman

Switzerland's Migros is the country's largest retailer and employer, as well as the owner of a prominent local bank, giving the company an unconventional perspective on the costs and benefits of mobile payments.

Spain's largest bank, CaixaBank, has entered a payments joint venture with Global Payments and the Erste Group Bank for transactions in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

Person-to-person payments have been delivering huge improvements around the globe in areas where cash is difficult to use. But in countries where cash suffers little hardship—including the U.S., the U.K. and Canada—the P2P business case is very different.

When a cyberthief attacked Ashley Madison — a dating website for cheaters — with the stated goal of demonstrating that the site’s mechanism for deleting customer data didn’t work, it sent a signal that should be heeded by any company that handles sensitive data.

For the first time, physical goods are the most purchased items on mobile devices, according to a recent report from Javelin Strategy and Research. But the bigger takeaway is what this means for bringing mobile payments into other channels.

When a restaurant chain's senior marketing manager ran a location-based offer trial this summer, she was quite surprised to see a mobile conversion rate that topped 45% — which meant that almost one out of every two consumers who were pinged by the chain's mobile app drove to the store and made a purchase.

First Data has acquired a San Diego-based digital card distribution firm called Transaction Wireless Inc. (TWI), a company which, paired with First Data's 2014 purchase of Gyft, rounds out the company's gift card strategy.

After boosting security to accommodate Indian government demands, Uber is again going to be accepting payment cards for its services in India. It will accept payment cards starting this week, following a nine-month suspension.

In an attempt to encourage people to use MasterCard through Apple Pay, the card brand will have people at the 2015 MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati, giving prizes to "the vast majority" of consumers who use Apple Pay with a MasterCard card.

MasterCard's decision to do a 500-person trial of facial recognition for payment authentication next month may seem like a bold move in security, but it's really taking aim at friction and CUs are watching the experiment.