While Bitcoin sometimes gets a bad rap with law enforcement officials, the police chief of Vicco, Ky. will begin getting his salary in the digital currency.

Airtag has added PayPal as a payment option for consumers using the KFC Fast Track mobile wallet to order and purchase food in advance at the fast food chain's U.K. restaurants.

CO-OP Financial Services is upgrading its Sprig digital wallet to allow broader person-to-person payments, and is also adding mobile credit and debit card control and alert features.

With a goal of speeding up delivery of Near Field Communication-enabled handsets, China Mobile Limited has purchased EMV chip-card testing capabilities from Fime, as well as received a license to begin operating a new, fourth-generation wireless network.

Mobile technology builder C-Sam has created a version of its mobile app development platform that's preconfigured with MasterPass specifications for financial institutions and processors to more easily build custom versions of MasterCard's digital wallet.

Google Wallet has undergone several major revisions since it launched and while the issues solved with its latest iteration were among its biggest hurdles, it's still too soon to declare a winner in the mobile wallet race.

If retail stores seemed a little less crowded over the holiday weekend, tablets or smartphones are likely to blame, as the volume of e-commerce payments made via mobile devices surged during what some are now calling the "Cyber Five" shopping days — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

Fraud prevention provider ValidSoft has joined the Fast Identity Online Alliance to help create standards for online authentication, the company announced Dec. 3.

Online remittance provider Xoom has followed up the quick start to its mobile payment services with local partnerships to allow the company's money transfer service to work across multiple channels.

The PayPal Digital Gifts website is a new e-commerce hub that sells virtual gift cards that can only be purchased using the eBay subsidiary's digital wallet.

Citigroup Inc. is expanding its ThankYou Rewards program by providing customers with virtual account numbers linked to their Citi credit cards and rewards accounts to redeem points at online merchants.

BTC China, the nation's largest Bitcoin exchange, has had low-level discussions with regulators seeking recognition of the digital currency that would allow it to be used to buy goods and services in the country.

NCR has been working to become a "hardware-enabled, software-driven business" for eight years. With its purchase of online and mobile banking vendor Digital Insight and transaction switching and fraud detection software company Alaric Systems, it's taken a big step forward.

NCR Corp. has agreed to purchase Menlo, Calif.-based Digital Insight Corp. for $1.65 billion. Separately, NCR also completed a purchase of Alaric Systems in London for $84 million.

Because of the changes that mobile will bring to the point of sale, the payments industry can expect to see acquisitions, consolidations and investments in that market over the next six to 12 months.

While nearly two thirds, or 61%, of U.S. online consumers have heard of a digital wallet, only 11% actually use one, an indicator that wallet providers still face challenges reaching consumers, according to Forrester Research.

MasterCard worked with Intel and Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors to establish a digital service that allows consumers to initiate online transactions by tapping their MasterPass card or Near Field Communication-enabled smartphone against a built-in NFC reader.

New York's city council recently voted to allow campaign contributions to be made by text message.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. started offering a cloud computing service known as Ju Baopen for banks and securities firms, as China's largest e-commerce company ventures into financial-related services.

SmartMetric Inc. says it is in the “advanced development” stages of a plastic payment card that will unlock through a fingerprint scan and operate as a digital wallet.