Technology

In a term often reserved for interior design, women's fashions or ballroom dancing, Apple Pay users call the mobile pay system "elegant" because of how easy it is to use.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking to permanently ban a credit provider in Texas from offering any services because of allegations that it ran a "sham credit card" business.

Acquirers are being encouraged to alert merchants to a new remote malware attack called "Ghost" that allows hackers to take over a network.

Payment technology provider Adyen is establishing Bitcoin as a payment option for consumers playing online games from U.K.-based Jagex.

The rapid pace of mobile point of sale technology and advanced merchant services is pressuring traditional terminal makers to ensure that their devices are not only still relevant, but capable of evolution.

The U.K. is rapidly becoming a target for payment crime, with malware on the rise and the country poised for fraud spikes as crooks abandon EMV-protected terminals to target the more vulnerable e-commerce channel.

PayEase, a merchant acquiring firm based in China, has begun offering online payment services in Taiwan through a partnership with the e-commerce company OnePaid.

Xoom, a digital payments company based in San Francisco, has begun offering money transfers to China.

As Starbucks has proven for years, few retail interactions are more tailor-made for mobile payment than coffee sales. But when U.K.-based grocery chain Marks & Spencer launched its own coffee loyalty app in a 58-store trial in London, it chose to keep its menu much simpler.

By linking mobile payments with money transfers, Western Union created a new use for Apple's mobile wallet. But it must still rigidly conform to the basic requirements of an Apple Pay transaction — without a bank account, there is no payment.