Technology

Square Inc. on May 11 announced its much anticipated payment card-acceptance software application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Emirates NBD PJSC may sell a partial stake in its credit card-processing unit, according to local media reports, which say the Dubai-based financial group has hired a firm to advise it on the valuation of its Network International LLC subsidiary.

Maryland's consumer protection division announced it reached a $20,000 settlement with payment processor MAP LLC for allegedly failing to properly dispose of consumers' personal information.

Obopay Inc. is all but abandoning the mobile transfer service it offers to consumers now that it's learned — maybe too late in the game — that banks are where the money is.

2010 will be remembered as the year that implementing mobile banking moved from being a get-on-the-bandwagon trend to table stakes in the American retail financial services market, the year that big banks began to recognize the channel's own legitimacy, and the year that most mid-tier and community banks put mobile banking on their short list of things to get done.

Now's an exciting time to be the bank executives charged with rolling out mobile banking. As industry fortunes rebound, funding is suddenly available at many financial institutions, and consumers' ever-increasing use of their ever-more-sophisticated mobile devices put institutions in the enviable position of rolling out technology just as consumers are ready to embrace it, as opposed to inventing tools and trying to motivate adoption.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. experienced more merchant losses during the first quarter compared with previous quarters in part because of sustained economic weakness, the discontinuation of large individual merchants and shoddy management oversight of risk, according to Robert Baldwin, president and chief financial officer of the Princeton, N.J.-based processor.

Hypercom Corp.’s newest point-of-sale products could help the company improve its profit margins, some analysts predict.

Though industry observers generally expect mobile banking to become a mainstream technology with consumers, consumers ages 18 to 25 remain the biggest users of the service, new research suggests.

Monett, Mo.-based Jack Henry & Associates announced this morning it has agreed to acquire iPay Technologies, the largest independent electronic bill pay provider in the U.S., from venture firms Spectrum Equity Investors and Bain Capital Ventures, for $300 million in cash.