John Adams

In buying Germany's Wincor Nixdorf, Diebold would not only be eliminating a rival — it would also gain new technology and retail relationships vital to its success in an economy that is growing much less reliant on plastic cards.

Diebold would not only be eliminating a rival in buying Germany's Wincor Nixdorf — it would also gain new technology and retail relationships vital to its success in an economy that is growing much less reliant on plastic cards.

With its IPO out of the way, First Data is accelerating its focus on merchant technology, and that means luring the developers who are rapidly changing how people shop and pay.

MasterCard's Craig Vosburg is trying to improve the quality of life in cities around the world.

Visa hopes to cut through the chaos that surrounds security threats by creating an intelligence service to distill and deliver information on vulnerabilities and potential attacks.

Consumers may not be adopting contactless mobile payments in droves, the tech companies behind the world's most popular smartphones are piling on the mobile wallet bandwagon.

Payment technology that comes with the EMV stamp of approval already in place may get a boost as a result of the bottleneck newer systems face in getting certified.

Dallas' transit system has launched a two-year project to enable contactless payments, a move the project team hopes will boost transit use and mobile wallet adoption, two areas in which supporting infrastructure is growing faster than consumer adoption.

The British government and a trade association are trying to nationalize open loop contactless payments for transportation, a project of staggering scope designed to provide seamless rider transactions for buses, trains and local mass transit systems.

Visa Europe is collaborating with Central Saint Martins College to determine if the true innovation in wearable computing is less about the "Internet" and more about the "things."

Since mobile app purchases are of little use to retailers if consumers bail on the transaction, technology vendors are keener than ever to cure 'cart abandonment.'

Business-to-business payments are well behind the curve of payments automation, though there's signs activity is about to pick up.

Twitter's board is expected to name Jack Dorsey CEO sometime in the next few days, according to technology site ReCode.

Twitter's goal of becoming a payments engine has gotten a boost, as Bigcommerce will support Twitter's 'buy buttons.'

As Uber-like business models perpetuate, bringing more contractors into a world where their job functions are handled primarily through a mobile app, there are still some pain points for which plastic is well suited.

Once placed inside of payment cards, computer chips can catalyze uses well beyond merchant security, argues MasterCard's Carlos Cornejo, who adds the card network plans to expand card utility through the mix of chips and tablets.

Square has opened an office in St. Louis, which will serve the mobile point of sale company's clients in the Midwest.

Small to medium sized businesses are often cast as unprepared for the card network's October deadline for EMV-chip card migration. But how bad can it really be?

Mobile carriers would seem a natural fit for mobile payments in face-to-face sales, but the phone companies may be better suited for a long-distance relationship with retailers.

It wasn't long ago that mobile point of sale companies like Shopkeep were the alternative, the way for very small merchants to finally start accepting cards.