Mobile payment initiatives in Canada are adding perks such as shopper loyalty programs, which can help differentiate the bank and carrier-branded mobile wallets when Apple Pay arrives.

In what could be seen as another salvo in the battle between payments and financial services 'disruptors' and more traditional financial institutions, five large technology companies — Google, Amazon, Apple, PayPal and Intuit — have formed a lobbying and advocacy group.

Mobile commerce provider P97 is partnering with SAP Vehicles Network to include its fuel payment platform with SAP's cloud-based automobile operating system.

By dropping out of the mobile card reader business, Amazon is focusing on the one-click Pay with Amazon app and further embedding payments into its customer relationship management.

Financial services technology company Fiserv and bank-owned risk management provider Early Warning are partnering to add scale for deposit accounts and bill payment services.

Mobile payments provider iZettle has expanded into Italy, where it will offer its free mobile card reader to small merchants as well as its wireless contactless payment acceptance device.

For a time, the European payments market was considered fertile ground for the creation of a third card network to compete against heavyweights Visa Europe and MasterCard. This third network never came to be, but European banks kept the idea on the back burner as a way to compete against or even bypass the major card brands.

In wearables, one size doesn't fit all. Some Apple Watch owners may never use Apple Pay; others may consider it a must-have feature.

Visa's agreement to reunite with Visa Europe positions the global card brand to better address a world where payments and commerce have fewer borders.

Gift cards don't seem like the coolest technology in the payments world, but new and reinvented digital gifting platforms are changing the conversation – by borrowing text-messaging staples like emoji.

Digital commerce and payments company Mozido has named R. Todd Bradley as its new chief executive.

To improve its commerce and restaurant management offerings, Heartland Payment Systems has acquired Digital Dining, a provider of software that enables handheld point of sale devices to interact with conventional fixed terminals.

Apple Pay hasn't gone too far with consumers in its first year, but it has nevertheless established a solid footing with merchants, banks and two generations of its own handsets. And Apple has many powerful rivals that are eager to surpass it.

FIS is taking a major step toward completing its ongoing project of making it possible for people to pay for fuel without getting out of the car.

If Visa and MasterCard seem to be shining an extremely bright spotlight on their tokenization efforts, it's because they view it as vital to their survival.

Starbucks Corp. now gets 21% of its U.S. sales in company-owned stores through its mobile app, and its new order-and-pay system looks to be just as popular.

MasterCard is talking to Merchant Customer Exchange executives about what role the card brand could play in the retailers' CurrentC mobile wallet, but the card brand insists it is just an interested observer in the merchant mobile wallet venture.

PayPal has long desired to be a force in brick-and-mortar payments, a strategy that's more vital than ever as the newly independent company pursues a course that distances it from its former owner, eBay.

Apple Pay was supposed to be the catalyst that finally convinced banks, merchants and consumers to leave their wallets at home and start paying with their phones. But a year later, it seems mobile wallets still need One More Thing to get off the ground.

With more smartphones coming equipped with technology that can read each user's fingerprint, it might be time to expand this idea and check the fingerprints of the device itself — particularly as mobile and e-commerce see more fraud as a consequence of EMV tightening up security at the point of sale.