John Adams

Apple Pay made a big splash when it arrived in late 2014, but has made few ripples since then, as consumers stuck to their old payment habits and banks in international markets proved reluctant to provide their support.

"Omnichannel" is an increasingly common term in the payments technology industry, but it means different things to different people.

Walmart plans to support Visa Checkout despite a rocky relationship between the two giant companies whose recent disputes have often involved legal action.

There is a lingering fear that enabling real-time transfers between consumer bank accounts will open a window for fraud that cannot be closed. But as demand for real-time payments grows, two consortiums led by large banks hope to address the banking industry's fraud concerns by developing an interoperable identity shield.

Digital and alternative currencies are often cast as libertarian-friendly payment vehicles whose very mission engenders government antagonism. But in Canada, things are a bit friendlier.

There is a lingering fear that enabling real-time transfers between consumer bank accounts will open a window for fraud that cannot be closed. But as the demand for real-time payments grows, two large bank-led consortia hope to address the banking industry's fraud concerns by developing an interoperable identity shield.

There is a lingering fear that enabling real-time transfers between consumer bank accounts will open a window for fraud that cannot be closed. But as the demand for real-time payments grows, two large bank-led consortia hope to address the banking industry's fraud concerns by developing an interoperable identity shield.

Payment cards aren't dead, but they are buried under a growing pile of new and high-tech payment devices.

FuturePay hopes its alternative credit model can shake up in-store payments as the company plots to go beyond its e-commerce roots.

Mobile technology companies love baking purchase capabilities into websites and mobile apps, providing myriad choices that make securing merchant buy-in the next big play. But there is a question of whether the rapid growth of in-app purchase may be "too much."

It's a precarious time for security at gas stations, many of which are taking advantage of the two-year grace period they received for EMV card acceptance when the rest of the bank and retail world faced a 2015 deadline.

With emerging payments technology, it's important for legacy companies cover as many bases as possible. For MasterCard, this means putting its technology into everything from jewelry to home appliances to a reimagined take on the classic plastic payment card.

MasterCard is unveiling an app that takes the Internet of Things to its logical extreme, stopping only one step short of becoming Star Trek's instant food replicator.

Transportation is one of the most obvious venues for mobile transactions, though it can also be one of the most difficult, given the legacy infrastructure and the vast scale of most systems.

Glacier Restaurants, having examined the wide array of choices to tap mobile technology, has concluded that the best entry-level mobile transaction is the digital gift card.

If dead men tell no tales, that makes identity theft of deceased account holders all the harder for card issuers to combat, particularly when the perpetrators are bank insiders.

If dead men tell no tales, that makes identity theft of deceased account holders all the harder for card issuers to combat, particularly when the perpetrators are bank insiders.

The lowest-hanging fruit for payments efficiency is governments, which handle huge volumes of payments and generally lag private corporate payments in implementing automated processing.

Fresh off the announcement of Walmart Pay, fellow retail chain and Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) member Target is planning its own mobile payment system, according to CNBC.

Uber's ride sharing app is generally considered less of a threat to payment processors than to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, but the ease of Uber's payment process may prompt consumers to grow frustrated with any process that forces them through a traditional checkout page.