The Swedish e-commerce firm Klarna, which offers a service that lets customers make online purchases and pay for them later by invoice, has completed its purchase of the German payment network Sofort.

Wirecard, based in Munich, Germany, is supporting mobile ticketing services from sunhill technologies GmbH, which allows motorists to pay for parking from a smartphone.

A new partnership between online shopping service provider Billeo and mobile billing firm Danal aims to give smartphone shoppers fewer hoops to jump through when making a purchase.

Online payments provider Payoneer has completed a $25 million Series D financing round it will use to expand through acquisitions and other efforts.

Foodler, a food ordering service, is one of the first to build on top of the "connected apps" technology recently added to the LevelUp mobile wallet.

As Isis shifts its marketing into high gear, the mobile wallet venture is positioning card issuers as vital to driving adoption of its app.

A new loyalty feature in NCR Corp.'s Silver point of sale system for iPads aims to help small businesses develop and manage customer rewards programs.

Mobile payments startup CardFree and processor Mercury Payment Systems have entered a partnership to provide their clients with a broader range of services.

New Media Insight Group and Loop are promoting different types of mobile payment technology designed to avoid interoperability issues with current payment terminals.

Powa Technologies has launched a system that enables shoppers to respond to in-store advertisements by using their smartphones to buy the advertised product.

When Apple makes its long-awaited plunge into mobile payments, it is more likely to create a closed system for Apple customers than a truly open mobile wallet for all consumers, a new study from Celent says.

As consumer preferences shift, billers must have the resources to deal with the growing demand to pay bills on a mobile device, according to a recent study by the technology vendor Fiserv.

The Nigerian mobile payments company Teasy Mobile is expanding its range of services through a partnership with VeriFone Mobile, a joint venture of payment terminal maker VeriFone and mobile money provider Mobilis Networks.

Mobile payment and marketing company Mozido has acquired StickyStreet, which creates and manages customer loyalty programs, for an undisclosed price.

Payments innovation comes quickly, and often from outside the banking industry, leading Associated Bank to create a special procedure to monitor the tech market and customer preferences.

Leaf, a provider of tablets for payments, has hired several executives including a director at Heartland Payment Systems, which recently invested in the startup.

VerifyValid is offering businesses and consumers a mobile application that enables users to write, approve, sign, receive and deposit checks from an iOS device.

Payments played a major role in the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here are some of the biggest announcements that came out during the conference, and a few from just before or afterwards that were no less important to the mobile payments community.

Cellum, a mobile commerce provider, has integrated MasterCard's MasterPass digital wallet with its own mobile wallet offering, OTPay, making it the first third-party in Europe to integrate MasterPass.

NakedWines' website, featuring a pastoral northern California winery, looks calm and comforting. But the company, which uses a crowdfunding payments model to reduce steps in wine sales, is trying to stir up some chaos.