John Adams

First Data is offering a new way to set up its card management technology, VisionPlus, to reduce cost and the upfront work of deployment.

The simple act of using the mobile phone to make a payment opens up an entire new world of commerce, says Brian McCabe, vice president of day to day banking at Scotiabank. Mobile payment tech is advancing quickly in Canada, and the Toronto-based Scotiabank is building out its strategy.

In Russia, there's a large potential for U.S. payments providers willing to brave country's complex tech infrastructure and a national ID and payment card initiative that's still a work in progress.

Visa Europe is adding multi-currency support and “immediate payments” to its mobile services in Europe.

Fiserv today launched Popmoney Instant Payments, an update to its person-to-person payment service that allows recipients to see funds in their account within second of when the transaction is initiated.

Stripe, a tech company that helps other companies build payments technology, has hired U.K. technology entrepreneur Andy Young to help drive Stripe’s expansion in the United Kingdom and other markets.

Flattr, a Swedish micropayments company, is discontinuing a Twitter-related payments service after apparently running afoul of Twitter's advertising rules.

Alioth, which sells government and payment cards in Russia, is teaming with NXP Semiconductors to launch a multi-functional card that combines payments with a range of other uses.

Fiserv is changing the name of its ACCEL/Exchange payments network to Accel, a move that draws attention to Fiserv's technology as the company competes against rivals such as Fidelity National Information Services and develops new emerging payments technology.

Bank of the West's mobile app now includes a subtle feature that could have a substantial effect on its customers' payment habits.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched a new user interface for Works, the institution's online program management tool for commercial card clients in the U.S. and Canada.

Despite the abundance of portable card readers, the sales pitch is often the same: it's for babysitters, gardeners, flea market sellers and other small merchants. Payleven says the market can be much bigger.

Elavon and Banco Santander confirmed their plan to launch a joint venture to provide merchant services in Spain.

MoonClerk is a new company that's targeting a distinct segment of the payments technology market—the startups and small businesses that want to build a Web payment acceptance engine, but don't have the right tech expertise in-house.

A dramatic dip in the value of Bitcoin is not fallout from a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, said Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in a Facebook post overnight Wednesday. But there was indeed a DDOS attack.

Mobile payment provider Payleven is adding two new features to lure larger businesses—the ability to manage multiple chip-and-PIN card readers from a single master account and support for both mobile and stationary printer systems.

FamZoo says its bundled prepaid cards and online dashboard work as teaching tools, which can bridge a knowledge gap about payments and budgets, particularly among young people.

Twitter on Wednesday abruptly shut down a new product from Ribbon that allows people to make purchases without leaving Twitter’s site.

PayPal legal foe PayOne has received a U.S. Patent for its PayConnect technology, “instant wallet” capability and intellectual property serving the mobile commerce and digital payment market.

PayAnywhere has added more stores to the list of retailers that sell its mobile acceptance technology.