Technology

The vision that Apple’s founder Steve Jobs once had of a new type of mobile phone that could become so instrumental and integrated into people’s lives that they’d rather leave their wallet at home than their iPhone is starting to take shape.

Alliance Data Systems Corp. agreed to buy Conversant Inc. for $2.3 billion, gaining technology to distribute advertising across the Internet and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Automakers routinely track and measure the failure rates of everything from a car's brakes to air bags to power steering. Now banks and lenders are being forced to think much the same way about mortgages.

MasterCard is establishing a foundation for mobile wallets in Europe by requiring the continent's merchants to accept contactless payments by the end of the decade.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is providing updated guidance for merchants to protect against fraudulent card skimming, which it says costs U.S. businesses and consumers $8 billion a year.

The shopping technology vendor Slice is extending its application programming interface (API) for the analysis of electronic payments data, giving merchants visibility into a wide range of consumer e-commerce spending.

If you can't beat them, join them — and join them fast. The other mobile wallets that already exist on Apple's ecosystem, such as LevelUp and Softcard (formerly Isis), are quickly working to integrate with Apple Pay and the iPhone 6 rather than try to defeat them.

Apple Pay appears to be missing one key thing: A reason to use it. Most other mobile wallets come with a reward program, but Apple currently isn't going that route.

Discover plans to join American Express, MasterCard and Visa in the Apple Pay service, enabling storage of Discover cards in Passbook.

Apple has a long list of supporters for its new mobile wallet, including a few key companies that had already thrown their hats in with PayPal and MCX. Retailers' support of Apple makes NFC a more likely prospect for PayPal mobile payments going forward.