John Adams

Mobile commerce provider CardFree, whose executives have ties to Starbucks' successful mobile payments app, has received a U.S. patent for technology that integrates reservation, payment pre-authorization and transaction management with a merchant's point of sale system.

While global shipments of mobile point of sale devices reached 8.4 million units in 2013—a 53% increase over 2012—more than 1.3 million of the devices went unused during the year, according to new research from ISH Technology.

Russian customs payments processor Multiservice Payment System has deployed technology to combine a Web transaction portal with electronic declaration services at the point of sale.

Cash transaction provider PayNearMe is among the growing list of payment companies that are anxiously awaiting the higher volume of transactions that will result from the Affordable Care Act.

Feedzai is attempting to sell the U.S. on a multichannel approach to card data security in the wake of the recent data breaches afflicting major retailers.

Mt. Gox, one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, has suspended Bitcoin withdrawals because of a technical issue, the company said in a Feb. 7 announcement.

SixThirty, a technology accelerator launched last year by Square co-founder Jim McKelvey, is searching for its second class of financial services technology startups.

United Nations Federal Credit Union, the first U.S. financial institution to offer EMV-chip cards to U.S. residents in the nation's recent migration efforts, will tap Gemalto's global issuance service to add more locations were the credit union's members can obtain chip cards.

Clutch's mobile wallet has added technology from Mobeam that allows consumers to 'beam' bar codes from loyalty, membership and gift cards from certain smartphone models directly to standard laser scanners, which often cannot read bar codes on mobile apps.

Corporate payment provider Wex is already laying the groundwork for 2015, when it plans to use the ExxonMobil fleet payments program to jump-start its efforts in the large network of European countries that comes with the new product.

United Nations Federal Credit Union, the first U.S. financial institution to offer EMV-chip cards to U.S. residents in the country's recent migration efforts, will tap Gemalto's global issuance service to add more locations were the credit union's members can obtain chip cards.

Payroll cards have gotten a lot of bad press over the past year, but the product is nevertheless a bright opportunity, says Rick Savard, CEO of UniRush, the company behind the RushCard prepaid cards.

Payline Data wants to add smaller businesses to its roster of merchant services clients, and figures "no swipe" mobile payments is good way to get in the door.

Visa will leverage SAP's hosted transaction technology to encourage more automated corporate payments, which are still more paper-based compared to consumer payments.

Mint, a personal financial management tool from Intuit, will let users view digital Bitcoin transactions processed by Coinbase along with their spending and saving in traditional bank accounts.

The recent spate of retailer data breaches demonstrates the need to embrace security methods such as EMV-chip cards and tokenization to protect transactions, Visa CEO Charlie Scharf told investors on Jan. 30.

PayPal says it did not divulge credit card information from a customer who contends PayPal exploited in a scheme to force him to give up his Twitter handle, "@N."

Ribbon is extending its payments services beyond merchant acceptance to include person-to-person payments.

Electronic payment and banking technology provider ACI Worldwide is working with Integrated Research to develop new performance management software.

JPMorgan Chase has partnered with electronic payment processor ElectraCard Services (ECS) and the University Students Community Organization (UNISCOO) to offer MasterCard prepaid cards to its customers in Kenya.