Google will discontinue Bump and Flock, two file-sharing apps Google acquired when it purchased Bump Technologies last year.

As more payments companies seek the next big thing, they are finding that mobile payments tech is due for a makeover, and a lot more attention surrounds digital currency such as Bitcoin.

The Coinstar brand has long been associated with spare change, but for Blackhawk it's the key to a diversified strategy for prepaid products and a catalyst for mobile wallet adoption.

From a consumer's perspective, the Merchant Customer Exchange mobile payment initiative ended 2013 in much the same way as it ended 2012 - with many big-name merchants signed on, but no product available to make payments in stores. Behind the scenes, MCX has made greater strides.

Mobile financial services technology company Monitise says it has signed several recent deals with clients across Europe and Asia.

With 2013 coming to a close, here's a look back at some of our favorite contributions to the PaymentsSource blog this year.

Synqera treats its home turf of Russia as a proving ground for new point of sale technology, but it has global ambitions.

Google has made more progress by splintering its payments strategy in 2013 than it did when it tried to provide a single, unified product.

DoubleBeam, a white-label payments provider, plans to offer a complete mobile commerce platform for both its online and brick-and-mortar merchant customers through its December purchase of GoPago.

On Track Innovations Ltd. plans to concentrate more time and money on its payments division after closing the sale of its SmartID business to SuperCom Ltd. last week, the Israel-based payments technology provider says.

Even though nonbanks seem to be taking the lead in the mobile wallet race, U.S. consumers still put more trust in banks to protect their money.

Google Wallet users who request the accompanying plastic card can activate that card through the wallet's mobile app, a process that will become increasingly common as mobile payments advance, experts say.

The payments industry is full of big ideas that haven't always found the right audience. As we enter 2014, a few trends are bringing new relevance to some older technologies.

TipperCoin is attempting to combine two concepts that have faced strong headwinds in the past year: digital currency and Twitter-based payments.

Emerging payments developers shouldn't feel forced to place all their bets on one platform or another. In the shorter term, successful future models of banking will be hybrids.

In the past few years, the payments industry has experienced a flood of new offerings, from consumer-facing giants like PayPal and Google to Silicon Valley startups such as Square.

Sony Corp., which launched its new PlayStation 4 video game console last month, is updating and promoting the payment options consumers can use with its new and older PlayStation systems.

Small Business Payments Co. recently launched its WorkBench cash management platform, allowing businesses to make credit card and e-check payments, with other features planned for the future.

The Minneapolis-based bank has been using mobile and digital watermark technology internally at board meetings to add multimedia elements to what would otherwise be static reports. It is now extending that technology to shopping and payments.

As more mobile wallets experiment with alternatives to Near Field Communication, Isis stuck to its use of the contactless payment technology. But will that prove to be a winning strategy or just a payments-industry fad?