Technology

Apple's mobile wallet has been out for just four months, and already it has shaken up the way mobile payments operate at the point of sale. It has faced pushback from some merchants and banks, but it has also popularized new forms of security and other payment technology.

While Visa and MasterCard aren't yet applying the same level of pressure for tokenization security as they are for EMV-chip cards, the card networks' CEOs are clear that this technology is their new expectation for e-commerce.

Green Dot Corp. plans to start offering credit lines to its customers, a move that likely foreshadows how new regulations will reshape the prepaid card industry.

MyECheck has reached an agreement to buy the electronic payment software platform developer Seergate.

Several wallet apps already let restaurant patrons order ahead for takeout and/or pay without waiting for a waiter. A Ukrainian company called Settle takes this concept a step further by also allowing customers to skip the wait for a table.

Federal Reserve officials suggested that anonymous payments and the technologies powering digital currencies could inform broader plans for reshaping the U.S. payment system.

Google reports a dramatic increase in mobile shopping, suggesting the channel is now mainstream for consumers.

Visa Inc., the world's largest payments network, posted fiscal first-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates as card spending increased.

Purveyors of certain cloud services, such as cloud-based lending, face continual rejection from bankers worried about security. But some say a data storage specialist could be every bit as secure as a financial institution — if not more so.

The telco-backed mobile wallet Softcard is at a significant crossroads. Though it once saw the debut of Apple Pay as an opportunity, Apple may actually be edging its rivals out of the market, and Softcard's next move will decide not only its own fate but also the strategies of the banks and merchants that could benefit from its technology.