Square Appointments, the company's latest fee-based product, is the first in its lineup that can be used by merchants who do not also use Square to accept payments.

As Powa begins integrating its new point of sale system with vendor partners, the company expects its experience with EMV-chip acceptance to be a selling point.

As consumers warm to the idea of using their phones to make payments and manage accounts, they are flocking to merchant apps to do so. Instead of using one unified wallet, a shopper's phone may be stuffed with any of these payment-capable programs.

Wearable computing is suddenly in style. Only a few banks and payment companies offer wristbands, smartwatch apps or Google Glass technology, but those that do are getting valuable feedback from consumers.

Virtual Piggy's Oink, a payment platform for teens, will become a payment option for users of Smilegate, a Korean gaming company.

Square is the latest technology company to launch a "bug bounty" program, which rewards volunteer hackers for finding security flaws and bringing them to Square's attention.

Many mobile payments vendors pile on features to set themselves apart, but Push for Pizza has a different philosophy. It lets consumers purchase a pizza, and that's it.

It's hard to design a Disney's "Frozen" cake with a cash register, but it works like magic with a tablet, according to Dallas-area Society Bakery.

NXT-ID is working with Joey Fatone, former member of the boy band N*Sync, to kick off a series of celebrity endorsements for its biometric Wocket wallet.

As computing devices get closer to the body, Westpac New Zealand is exploring how wearables such as smartwatches and Google Glass can be used for payments and other financial services.

Wipit has updated its mobile application to allow consumers to make payments by displaying a bar code at the point of sale.

The Oyster contactless payment card is no longer the only fish in the sea for London's mass transit network, which will accept contactless payments via credit and debit cards by mid-September.

Walt Disney Co.'s experiment in payment-capable wearables can probably be declared a success, with the company reporting that about half of Walt Disney World guests sport MagicBands.

Mobile card readers like Square and PayPal Here must inevitably offer an EMV-chip card option to U.S. merchants, but how soon is too soon? And what are the consequences of arriving too late?

Payment processor epay plans to offer proximity-based mobile advertisements to consumers in the U.K., with plans to extend the technology to other regions over the next year.

TIO Networks has acquired the assets of VeriFone Commerce Solutions Inc., a Web-based bill payment services provider also known as ChargeSmart.

Square Inc. has purchased food delivery company, Caviar, in a move to add non-payment features to its mobile payment and ordering system.

Roam, a Boston-based unit of Ingenico, has begun offering its mobile payment services on Leapfactor, a business software platform.

Amazon's new mobile wallet can't make payments, but it benefits from working with Blackhawk Network to connect to gift and loyalty cards from Blackhawk merchants.

As consumers extend their spending across the globe, the various hurdles they face are becoming targets of innovation.