Alternative acquirers

Schools are increasingly relying on digital payments for the cafeteria and activities — a trend that is proving to be fertile ground for payments technology as frantic parents seek ways to keep their kids properly fed and supplied for their education.

As check registers and passbooks fade into obscurity for a growing number of bank customers, Realex seeks to further modernize payments by putting a human face on accounts.

Recognition by a market-based standards organization such as ISO, in the form of a three-letter code, would set the stage for increasing market depth and liquidity of bitcoin trading — in turn facilitating overall consumer and merchant adoption.

Youth e-commerce company Virtual Piggy will provide its payment engine to Marvelous USA, which sells video games.

See how the U.K. version of the PayPal Here mobile point of sale technology enables EMV chip-card payments.

Youth payments company Virtual Piggy has integrated with Sulake’s Habbo Hotel, a social gaming and online community for teenagers.

PayPal offers no shortage of choices for loading their accounts, including Green Dot, MoneyGram, Coinstar and its own My Cash Card — but are consumers using them?

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin is part of the team behind Glow, a fertility tracking service that uses a mobile app, crowdfunding and analysis to help women conceive children.

Bango, a direct carrier billing provider, has integrated with Mozilla's Firefox Marketplace, allowing consumers to charge digital purchases to their phone bill.

MoneyGram will enable PayPal's 55 million U.S. accountholders to withdraw funds from their accounts at MoneyGram locations.

PayPal plans to fuel the expansion of its in-store payment system by using services from retail card loyalty and marketing company Alliance Data Systems.

Billionaire Jack Ma’s third-party electronic payments operator agreed to offer services to fund companies in China, extending his footprint in the nation’s heavily regulated finance industry.

Facebook Inc. hired Gary Briggs, a veteran of Google Inc. and EBay Inc., to be its first chief marketing officer as the world’s largest social network seeks to expand its global brand.

Visa has elevated former PayPal and Yahoo executive Sam Shrauger to head of digital, part of an internal reorganization at the card network that took place at the end of July, according to an analyst report from Janney.

To create effective mobile payments products, developers must treat merchants and consumers as separate customer segments that have of inextricably-linked needs.

Virtual Piggy, which provides an online youth payment system, now offers digital gift cards on its website through a deal with the prepaid card company InComm.

PayPal is sponsoring a hackathon series where mobile app developers have just 24 hours to build an app that will win them a trip to PayPal headquarters to compete for $100,000 at the Battle Hack World Finals.

PayPal is making programming tools available worldwide to allow software developers outside the U.S. to integrate PayPal payments into their applications.

MasterCard, which announced its earnings hours after the Isis mobile wallet venture revealed plans to expand nationwide, faced questions over where the card network fits in the evolving mobile payments ecosystem.

Payoneer Inc. CEO Scott Galit says a new partnership with online marketplace Fiverr illustrates how his company is positioned for providing payments services in a changing business world.