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Each time the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council felt it was ready to establish a written-in-stone requirement for securing mobile payments, the technology — and the fraud committed against it — changed.

American card issuers and acquirers are "dragging their feet" on the transition to the EMV chip card standard, but some companies hope to speed the transition by making a clear business case for the technology.

Dynamics, a provider of payment cards that can dynamically rewrite their magnetic stripes or smart chips, unveiled another variant of its design this week.

The Near Field Communication chip used in many mobile wallets was conspicuous by its absence during Apple Inc.'s unveiling of the iPhone 5.

ShopKeep POS, a small independent sales organization, is capturing the attention of companies big and small. Earlier this month, it worked with PayPal to test a mobile-payment system, and today it announced plans with Dwolla and SCVNGR's LevelUp.

Fair Isaac has completed its $115-million acquisition of Adeptra, a privately held company that provides technology for reducing fraud and credit risk.

BitPay, an Orlando-based company that helps online merchants accept the digital currency, says more than 1,000 merchants have signed up for its service in the past year.

Online Resources Corp. opened an office in the metro Atlanta area this year to attract the sort of payments-industry talent it says is rarer in Chantilly, Va., where it is based.

The National Retail Federation said it will try to block a settlement of as much as $7.25 billion with Visa and MasterCard over the fees they charge shops when customers pay with credit cards.

Despite the decisions by some of the leading mobile-payment providers to work within the existing infrastructure, investors are concerned that legacy players' operations soon might become obsolete. And VeriFone is serving as their poster child.

Branch staff may provide credit and debit cards right away to customers under a new instant-issuance service from Fiserv.

Banks and credit unions that have watched from the sidelines as the likes of Square, PayPal and Intuit built a mobile-payments market from scratch now have their own product to offer — a product merchants can't get off a retail-store shelf or from an independent sales organization.

Advanced encryption methods, mobile payment security and various other technologies figure to be major topics once again when the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council's participants meet this week.

Discover is pushing aggressively to be at the heart of many mobile-payments initiatives. It's doing a lot that its rivals are not — but there are a few ways it might lose ground.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest lender by assets, agreed to buy the Shoppers Optimum credit-card portfolio from Bank of America to extend its MasterCard offerings.

MasterCard has acquired Truaxis Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that crunches payment data to target special offers and discounts from merchants to debit and credit cardholders.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council plans to recruit more soldiers in its ongoing war against fraudsters and cybercrooks. A new program allows any qualified individual to become a certified PCI Professional.

Visa cardholders will be able to receive immediate fashion offers via text message under a mobile-offers test Visa is conducting with Neiman Marcus.

VeriFone's stock price tumbled after the maker of payment terminals reported third-quarter sales that fell short of analysts' estimates, citing unfavorable currency swings, competition in Europe and a fire in Brazil.

MasterCard became the first payments network to issue a license to a Myanmar bank as the Southeast Asian nation moves toward integrating with the global financial system after decades of military rule.