Technology

Dublin-based gateway provider Realex Payments is working to make personal and business banking less expensive by offering payments-only banking services.

Innovation can come from unlikely places. Five years ago, few would have guessed that the most widely available mobile wallets would be developed by companies like Starbucks and Google, which built their names in completely different fields. Several more disruptors are joining the scene, with even weirder origins.

The banking industry's victory on debit card interchange fees seems likely to be the decisive turn in a high-stakes legal dispute with retailers.

Visa is making its common application identifier available for Discover's Pulse debit network, marking the latest in a string of agreements that pave the way for EMV debit card acceptance in the U.S.

MasterCard has added China to the international roster of markets that accept the card network's MasterPass digital wallet.

Elavon's clients now have the option to add a customer loyalty program directly into their payment transaction systems, enabling shoppers to redeem rewards any time they make a payment.

A federal appeals court panel ruled today that the existing restrictions on debit card swipe fees should largely stand, turning back a challenge by retailers who argued that banks are still earning too much money from the fees.

NFC mobile wallets had been disregarded by some in the industry as a viable mobile payment option, but they got a boost with the arrival of a technology that will enable the card data to be stored remotely instead of within a phone. This slight change makes NFC mobile wallets increasingly more attractive as it eliminates one of its biggest stumbling blocks to adoption.

ID Analytics, anticipating an influx of fraud attempts on the Web, has upgraded its anti-fraud software to incorporate more information about online purchasing behavior.

There's a lot of investment flowing into mobile payments technology, and perhaps this is more than the market can sustain.