John Adams

The telco-driven Isis mobile wallet will now be called Softcard, a name chosen to avoid confusion and association with a militant group in the Middle East that is often referred to as "ISIS."

Amazon has hired Visa executive Nick Talwar as general manager of Amazon Lending, according to a report in ReCode.

Drync, a wine-related software developer, is using Google Wallet to distill the complex process of shopping for wine from a mobile app.

Amazon's launch of a mobile card reader should force many mobile point of sale companies to reevaluate whether their own offerings are distinct enough to ensure their survival.

Square is seeking to gain about $200 million in funding, with part of that coming from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, according to CNBC.

Convenience store and gas station operator Mapco is using PayPal-funded mobile payments to keep motorists from straying to competitors' gas pumps.

Sequent has patented a payment system that allows merchants to simultaneously accept several types of cards with a single tap of a mobile device at the physical point of sale, with the goal of making mobile wallets more user-friendly.

The Medical research nonprofit Enduring Hearts got a quick boost from a mobile payments engine that allows consumers to donate while making purchases at a network of retailers.

First Data has a number of payments initiatives planned for the next year in Brazil, where the mix of mobile and card adoption suggests big potential for electronic card payments.

London-based Currency Cloud plans to expand its payment offerings to the U.S. to serve businesses that are having a hard time adding automated cross-border transactions to their workflows.

VeriFone is targeting a wide range of markets for its taxi and merchant applications. The company has reached an agreement with Bharti Airtel Group in Africa and, separately, entered taxi payment deals in Turkey and Mexico.

The Backoff malware, which targets point of sale systems and has hit hundreds of businesses, may catalyze adoption of EMV "chip and PIN" cards and two-factor authentication as merchants look for ways to soften the impact of the next attack.

SumUp is preparing to bring its mobile point of sale device to a number of new countries, and hopes its practice of developing its technology in-house will help it contain the costs of chip and PIN card payments.

Braintree and PayPal are testing an integrated mobile payments feature, delivering on the company's promise to integrate technology from Braintree's Venmo unit.

Square and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has been in Ferguson, Mo., as part of the protests that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, earlier this month.

Square and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has been in Ferguson, Mo., as part of the protests that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, earlier this month.

Square, which has been scrambling to add fee-based services to pad the revenue it gets from mobile payments, faces a formidable new challenge in Amazon.com's launch of a rival mobile card reader.

Square, which has been scrambling to add fee-based services to pad the revenue it gets from mobile payments, faces a formidable new challenge in Amazon's Local Register.

The pieces for a robust digital payments market in India are in place, and are waiting for a merchant-friendly catalyst, says Srinivas Nidugondi, head of mobile financial solutions at Mahindra Comviva, which is partnering with First Data to offer a mobile point of sale product in India.

Even if it pushes the bank past the October 2015 deadline for EMV-chip card adoption, BMO plans to stick with its magnetic-stripe cards until each one reaches its natural expiration date.