Harper Reed and Dylan Richard first burst onto Chicago's tech scene as part of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection team, and their social media wizardry is often credited for keeping the president in the White House.

Avidia Bank of Hudson, Mass. has contracted payments technology company FIS to offer card-free ATM transactions through a mobile app.

MasterCard and First Tech Federal Credit Union are testing a system that might be the picture-perfect solution to the expected rise in e-commerce fraud following the October shift to EMV security in the U.S.

The growing adoption of Apple Pay will help Apple's smartwatch capture up to 68 percent of the smartwatch market by the end of the year.

The small merchants that turn to Square for their card acceptance needs are also among the most reluctant to swap out their hardware for devices that can handle EMV-chip cards, so Square is putting into play a strategy that banks have long used to get consumers on board with new technology.

The rise of mobile payments has had only a narrow impact on the use of cash, according to a new report from the ATM Industry Association and business strategy consulting firm Tremont Capital Group.

Rather than compete head-on with Square, Intuit is crafting a strategy of providing software that complements Square's offerings for merchants that have more complex needs.

Canadian payments company DirectCash Payments has unveiled a new payment-capable wristband.

Information technology firm Infosys and digital payments company Payveris have partnered on a new service for bill payment and money management for credit union and community bank customers.

The mobile wallet market is constantly changing, often in unexpected ways. Products have evolved dramatically in a very short amount of time, and companies that seemed committed to one strategy a year ago now find themselves on a completely different path.

Samsung is confident even though its payment service comes almost a year after Apple's. Unlike Apple Pay, Samsung's can work with the magnetic-strip card readers that are common in stores and restaurants. On top of that, Samsung won't charge banks and credit-card issuers transaction fees.

The recent explosion of mobile commerce and payments would not have been possible without open and sharable technology, and the credit union service organization CO-OP Financial Services aims to duplicate that success with its own technology.

The timing brings Samsung's mobile wallet to market just a few weeks shy of Apple Pay's one-year anniversary — and in line with the expected annual refresh of Apple's iPhone line.

WeChat, a smartphone instant-messenger, digital wallet and car-booking service rolled up into one, is probably worth $83.6 billion. As people spend more and more time sending short messages to each other, such services have become some of the hottest technology businesses around.

Visa's newly established Bangalore-based technology development center is rebuilding Visa's presence in India, bringing fresh ideas to some older projects.

Payment and identification card company American Banknote (ABnote) and cloud-based payment company MeaWallet are partnering to create an open-loop mobile wallet for ABnote customers.

As CEO of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) mobile wallet venture, Brian Mooney must remain calm as his company faces an increasingly stormy market with no product to show for its years-long efforts.

In the heavily competitive mobile payments market, the fastest way to lose is to pin all hopes on one vendor. Rite Aid learned this lesson the hard way as a participant in the Merchant Customer Exchange, a multi-retailer mobile payments initiative that demanded exclusivity from its partners.

Western Union has added several European countries to its WU.com online money transfer service, using an omni-channel strategy to fuel its expansion.

The technology vendor Nymi is drawing the attention of major companies like MasterCard and TD Bank, which are testing its contactless payments device that authenticates users by detecting their heartbeat.