Technology

Mobile technology companies love baking purchase capabilities into websites and mobile apps, providing myriad choices that make securing merchant buy-in the next big play. But there is a question of whether the rapid growth of in-app purchase may be "too much."

Authentication methods meant to keep cybercriminals from taking over accounts can also lock out legitimate users. This old dilemma is growing more vexing as cybercriminals get better at impersonating customers and as regulators increasingly push multifactor authentication.

In the war on cash, Canada doesn't hold a candle to Sweden, where bills and coins are used for less than 5% of retail transactions, or Denmark, which plans to eradicate cash by 2030. But recent research suggests Canada is quickly closing the gap as its rate of contactless payments is soaring.

It's a precarious time for security at gas stations, many of which are taking advantage of the two-year grace period they received for EMV card acceptance when the rest of the bank and retail world faced a 2015 deadline.

Technology and applications platform Envestnet | Yodlee has partnered with white-label app provider Magpie on a full-service platform.

Ingo Money in Atlanta, Ga., has added former MasterCard president and chief executive H. Eugene Lockhart to its board of directors.

With emerging payments technology, it's important for legacy companies cover as many bases as possible. For MasterCard, this means putting its technology into everything from jewelry to home appliances to a reimagined take on the classic plastic payment card.

Walmart has entered the mobile payments industry, announcing in December that it was introducing Walmart Pay, an upgrade to Walmart’s existing app that will allow in-store shoppers to pay with their smartphones at checkout.

New patents provide a glimpse into how Apple Inc. plans to personalize the payments experience by harnessing Apple’s iMessage channel, bringing it in line with message-based P2P services from Venmo, Facebook, Google and others.

MasterCard is unveiling an app that takes the Internet of Things to its logical extreme, stopping only one step short of becoming Star Trek's instant food replicator.