ISO & Agent

The future belongs to mobile payments, but that future remains unclear, as many competing technologies are vying for consumers' attention.

VeriFone Systems plans to offer a new portable card terminal that can accept EMV-chip card payments and uses several wireless technologies.

First Data has introduced new services for small to medium-sized businesses that work with its Clover Station tablet-based point of sale hardware.

Roam, Ingenico's mobile point of sale subsidiary, has partnered with services provider EVO Payments International to market Roam's technology to U.S. merchants.

Gyft, a provider of virtual gift cards, plans to launch Gyft Cloud, a marketplace for merchants to sell their own digital gift cards with Clover Station, a tablet-based point of sale system developed by First Data Corp.

Powa is launching a bundled mobile point of sale offering, called PowaPOS, which U.S. merchants can use to accept EMV-chip cards.

CardFlight, a mobile payments hardware and software developer, has introduced a mobile point of sale device with an emphasis on branding.

The merchants who want to use Leaf's tablet for payments, called LeafPresenter, often also need transaction services. Through the launch of its online marketplace, Leaf will now be ready to offer information from a host of merchant acquirers.

SCVNGR's LevelUp has begun a campaign to urge users of its mobile wallet to fund payments from a debit card instead of a credit card. The end goal is to get its transaction fees as low as possible, while filling a void left by merchants who switched away from another pricing model it boldly called Interchange Zero.

VeriFone Systems had five of its Payware EMV-enabled mobile card readers approved for the Visa Ready Program.

PayPal now offers the chip-and-PIN version of its PayPal Here mobile card reader to merchants in Australia.

Square is accelerating its integration with third parties to save the time and resources it would take to develop the business technology it needs to stay competitive in an increasingly sophisticated and crowded mobile payments marketplace.

Already a major card issuer in the military market, Navy Federal Credit Union is working to expand its merchant services business through new agreements with Square and TSYS.

McDonald's customers in Thailand now have the option to make credit card payments to a mobile device as part of the McDelivery 1711 service.

MyECheck, a payment technology developer, has licensed its mobile payment system to three companies.

Payzone, a provider of payment technology for retail stores, hotels and restaurants, is planning to offer Seamless' SEQR mobile wallet to its approximately 20,000 clients.

VeriFone CEO Paul Galant says he is re-organizing the terminal maker's fragmented research and development process and improving its current cost structure in an effort to repair the company.

Navy Federal Credit Union is promoting Square's mobile card reader and payment processing services to its small-business members.

Square is making all of its payment apps in available in Spanish in an effort to attract Latino merchants in the U.S.

Payment processor CardConnect is now offering EMV-card acceptance technology from Ingenico.