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.

Nearly every social media site is experimenting with 'buy buttons' today, but consumers' actual buying habits sometimes challenge the expectations of merchants and platform providers.

PayPal Holdings Inc.'s third-quarter sales missed estimates in its first report since the company's July separation from eBay Inc., revealing a rocky start to its first few months as a stand-alone company.

Making its first entry into the financial exchange space, Dwolla will provide real-time payments clearing and settlement capabilities for the CME Group futures and options marketplace.

Apple Pay will launch in Canada later this year with American Express — and no other issuers named for the mobile wallet's launch in the region.

Consumers still aren't eager to make payments from their phones, despite the immense security boost mobile wallets provide through encryption, tokenization, dynamic account data and biometrics. So MasterCard is taking these technologies and hiding them in other products.

JPMorgan Chase entered the digital wallet wars in announcing Chase Pay, a product that will launch next year. Although mobile payments have been more bark than bite so far, the company says that its product plans to use loyalty programs to lure reluctant consumers.

The alliance between JPMorgan Chase and the Merchant Customer Exchange represents more than an olive branch between two industries that have typically been at war over fee revenue — it's a result of a years-long transformation in how Chase approaches its relationships with the retail sector.

As one of the fastest growing payment companies, all eyes are on Stripe. But if the industry expects the company to launch a sexy, new application they're unlikely to get it.

New mobile wallets like the Merchant Customer Exchange's CurrentC may find themselves in conflict with other high-tech mobile apps that came to market sooner.