Technology

Passengers traveling by bus or train in Frankfurt, Germany, will have more options to pay for tickets using their mobile phones if they are carrying a Blackberry device when using the Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund transportation system.

The launch of Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire in late September stoked the flames of the tablet war raging among providers such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Apple Inc., Research in Motion Inc. and Amazon Inc.

Citing strong execution across each of its businesses, Global Payments Inc. on Oct. 4 reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $542.8 million, up 23.3% from $440.1 million during the same period last year.

Controversy brewed in the Android Marketplace last week when Bank of America Corp. began rolling out a person-to-person payment feature in its mobile-banking application.

Apple Inc. is taking a pass on mobile payments for now as its new iPhone lacks a Near Field Communication chip.

OfficeMax Inc. customers may tap and pay using the Google Wallet mobile phone payment application at new checkout terminals the retailer has placed in more than 100 of its stores, the office-supply company announced Oct. 3.

Apriva LLC has released the Apriva Secure Communication Suite, which its ISS division designed to help secure mobile communications, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company announced Oct. 3.

Fees this year will surpass interest as the payment card industry’s largest income component for the first time, representing 52.7% of total revenue, according to R.K. Hammer, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based consultancy.

Many bank risk-management executives worry that credit card delinquency rates, which have been declining for more than two years, may begin to rise again soon if the economy does not improve, according to new FICO survey data.

Most banks design mobile sites as shrunken versions of online banking. Citigroup Inc.'s new website instead takes the lessons of mobile and blows them up for a bigger screen.