ISO & Agent

Mergers and acquisitions among payments companies rose 44% in 2014 compared to the year before.

New, experimental consumer marketing programs have played a significant role in the way technology has upended the payment business in recent years. And Visa is looking to get in on the action.

Online money transfer service WorldRemit has signed a partnership with a telco that serves Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enable its customers to send money to mobile wallet users in those regions.

Ingenico Group, a French maker of payment terminals, has completed its acquisition of Roam.

Merchant acquirers can learn a lot from their new competitors about how to stand out in a crowd where everybody appears to be the same.

Mobile payments provider Spindle signed an agreement with Transaction Data USA, a payments industry consulting firm, to expand the sale of its products to merchants.

Retailers are adopting many innovations to counter the lure of online shopping, which is becoming more of a threat to brick-and-mortar stores as e-commerce spreads to a growing number of Internet-connected devices.

PayPal is revamping its lineup of mobile point of sale offerings, expanding developer tools and adding EMV in the U.S. But its new support for Microsoft devices may have the most impact as it pursues merchants that can already get payment capabilities elsewhere.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is in talks to buy a minority stake in India's One97 Communications Ltd., owner of an online payments processor, according to people familiar with the matter.

Education payments company peerTransfer has grown quickly by providing a specialized service to a specific market, but it may be time for it graduate to new lines of business.

Wirecard, an electronic payments company based in Germany, has partnered with Bank Mega to provide retailer Carrefour Indonesia with point of sale technology.

Apriva is integrating its payments gateway with software that automatically updates point of sale systems connected with Apriva as new types of payments emerge.

The San Jose-based payment terminal maker Verifone launched a new mobile operating system and is separately working with Samsung on new mobile point of sale projects.

Global payment solutions provider Elavon has partnered with Verizon to bring mobile point of sale products to Verizon's small-business customers.

Tritium Partners has acquired a majority stake in Giact Systems LLC, an electric payments service.

Stage Stores, a department store chain based in in Houston, has beefed up its payment security with technology from Chase Paymentech and Ingenico.

Traditional merchant acquirers have faced disruption from a number of new entrants in recent years from companies such as Square and its peers. And now, a football team is getting into the game.

Wirecard, a digital payments company based in Germany, has partnered with Five by Five, a software provider in Croatia, to provide mobile point of sale technology to small businesses.

Apple's reputation as a negotiator is rather simple—it doesn't negotiate. But Strategic Resource Management, a negotiation company with 200 clients in financial services, contends issuers and merchants have a chance to win more favorable terms with Apple.

Tablet-based point of sale and other integrated payment systems are advancing quickly, but there are some obstacles in the road to domination—particularly for providers that didn't plan ahead for EMV-chip cards in the U.S.