Dublin-based gateway provider Realex Payments is working to make personal and business banking less expensive by offering payments-only banking services.

Innovation can come from unlikely places. Five years ago, few would have guessed that the most widely available mobile wallets would be developed by companies like Starbucks and Google, which built their names in completely different fields. Several more disruptors are joining the scene, with even weirder origins.

MasterCard has added China to the international roster of markets that accept the card network's MasterPass digital wallet.

There's a lot of investment flowing into mobile payments technology, and perhaps this is more than the market can sustain.

The ATM maker Diebold has deployed a machine at Diebold Federal Credit Union that operates without a card reader or PIN pad.

Sionic Mobile, a provider of mobile marketing, gifting, payments and rewards programs, has embedded Google Wallet payments into its ION Rewards app.

Activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been calling for eBay to spin off PayPal, is now asking for eBay to conduct a partial initial public offering of the payments processor.

QR codes, which are commonly used in mobile wallets to link to a consumer's payment account, can just as easily link to phishing sites, malware and other nasty surprises.

Merchants who in recent years viewed mobile payments as experimental now say they consider the technology vital in e-commerce, even though many remain concerned about fraud.

Starbucks now gets 14% of its in-store U.S. payments from its mobile app, the company reported at its annual shareholder meeting today. This indicates a steady increase since June 2013, when it received 10% of U.S. payments through its mobile app.

Commuters in New York City may still use magnetic-stripe MetroCards to pay fares for five years to come, but transportation officials say they are considering some more modern options.

Payleven is launching a new chip and PIN card reader that's capable of accepting Near Field Communication contactless payments, with the aim of cutting costs for European merchants.

Global payments provider Payoneer will handle Google's "insurance" payments to consumers as part of the Google Trusted Stores program.

Wine may improve with age, but point of sale technology does not. Years ago, when ShopKeep POS founder Jason Richelson operated the Green Grape wine store in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, he struggled so often with archaic point of sale systems that it motivated him to develop his own alternative.

The corporate payment provider Wex has elected Eric Duprat to its board of directors.

Burger King Worldwide Inc. is introducing an application that will allow customers to pay for Whoppers with their smartphones as it races rivals to woo younger diners.

Acculynk will provide its payments processing gateway, PayLeap, to customers of cloud-based global e-commerce provider Ecwid.

Some of the nation's biggest banks killed a proposal in 2012 that would have enabled electronic payments to be processed on the same day they're initiated. Now the industry group that championed that plan, Nacha, is reviving its effort to speed up payments across the network that connects every U.S. bank and credit union.

Riders on Chicago Transit Authority buses and elevated trains will make all payments with the Ventra transportation card starting July 1, the CTA announced this week.

In the truck business, speed matters. And nothing slows down a payment like a paper check.