Technology

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.

University students and faculty in Spain, Brazil, Chile and Mexico can use their mobile phones to gain access to buildings and make payments at on-campus restaurants through technology provided to Banco Santander by digital security provider Gemalto.

The online money transfer provider Xoom Corp. is working with India's Housing Development Finance Corporation Bank Ltd. to allow customers to receive payments instantly into an HDFC Bank account.

2Checkout has developed a hosted online and mobile payment processing system that can plug into a merchant's existing e-commerce site.

The digital revolution has yet to sweep up the money remittance business as it has other retail payments services, but change is coming fast.

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.

Even the biggest success stories in mobile payments have skeletons in their closets. But each company learned from its mistakes and was quick to adapt.

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.

BlackBerry once seemed to be a good bet for mobile payments, with a large installed userbase even when iPhone and Android handsets were still considered a luxury rather than a necessity.