John Adams

The major U.S. telcos may have abandoned their mobile wallet ambitions when they sold off Softcard, but their power casts a shadow over efforts to build ubiquity across the market.

Harper Reed and Dylan Richard first burst onto Chicago's tech scene as part of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection team, and their social media wizardry is often credited for keeping the president in the White House.

The London-based bank payment network Earthport is expanding its application of distributed ledger technology (a system best known for its use with Bitcoin) to enable real-time cross-border payments and potentially reduce risk.

The small merchants that turn to Square for their card acceptance needs are also among the most reluctant to swap out their hardware for devices that can handle EMV-chip cards, so Square is putting into play a strategy that banks have long used to get consumers on board with new technology.

Rather than compete head-on with Square, Intuit is crafting a strategy of providing software that complements Square's offerings for merchants that have more complex needs.

Health and wellness apps may not much in common with small business payments and merchant services, but it was the fitness-tracking craze that lit a fire under Intuit to build an Apple Watch app for its clients.

The recent explosion of mobile commerce and payments would not have been possible without open and sharable technology, and the credit union service organization CO-OP Financial Services aims to duplicate that success with its own technology.

Visa's newly established Bangalore-based technology development center is rebuilding Visa's presence in India, bringing fresh ideas to some older projects.

As CEO of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) mobile wallet venture, Brian Mooney must remain calm as his company faces an increasingly stormy market with no product to show for its years-long efforts.

Many payment companies are hosting hackathons to attract developer talent from outside their own ranks; MasterCard found that its own people are just as eager to bring their ideas to life.

The technology vendor Nymi is drawing the attention of major companies like MasterCard and TD Bank, which are testing its contactless payments device that authenticates users by detecting their heartbeat.

Many payment companies are hosting hackathons to attract developer talent from outside their own ranks; MasterCard found that its own people are just as eager to bring their ideas to life.

Twitter is reportedly integrating with Shopify and other e-commerce companies to find merchants to support its buy button.

Target is deploying Bluetooth beacons to offer time-sensitive deals and product recommendations to shoppers in its stores, and it has more ambitious plans for the technology later in the year.

Health and wellness apps may not much in common with small business payments and merchant services, but it was the fitness-tracking craze that lit a fire under Intuit to build an Apple Watch app for its clients.

The U.S. card networks have been trying to gain a foothold in the huge Indian payments market for years, and both Visa and MasterCard have upped the ante in the past year by opening development centers to launch new payments technology directly into the market.

Even an entrepreneur who specializes in products for young people can be taken aback by how fast a new mobile technology becomes an everyday necessity for its users.

The swarm of new mobile payment initiatives has left traditional bank issuers with little choice but to shoehorn modern mobile wallets into their aging infrastructure.

DigiSeq is aggressively pushing a future of wearable computing, contending that payments should be baked into whatever device the consumer is using, rather than a specific device an issuer directly distributes or chooses to perform financial services.

The mobile point of sale market already seems overcrowded, but what's out there now is just a taste of what's to come, according to 451 Research.