Apple has — yet again — left payments out when it designed its newest iPhone, despite numerous indications that it explored using Near Field Communication technology to create a mobile wallet. Apple had many good reasons to choose the course it did.

Square has stolen the spotlight — after convincing Starbucks to switch to Square for processing, the mobile-payments vendor gave other merchants the option to accept cards for a flat $275 monthly fee. How can a rival mobile-pay provider compete?

PayPal and Square allow their mobile-wallet users to pay by checking in at merchant locations with an app that transmits their photo to the merchant for authentication. With ShopKeep POS, PayPal is showcasing this feature at a New York film festival.

SCVNGR's LevelUp, which announced a charitable-donation option today, is not the first to spot a link between charities and mobile spending and rewards. Shopkick's mobile rewards app began life in 2009 as CauseWorld, which had a strong focus on donating any rewards earned to charities.

DeviceFidelity is relaunching its Moneto mobile wallet, and this time around it lets users transfer funds to other Moneto users' prepaid accounts.

Many companies are seeking fresh ways to use mobile phones to add functionality and security at ATMs.

VeriFone is making good on its original promise to open up its Square-like mobile card reader, Sail, to developers.

Google Wallet is under increasing pressure — though the mobile wallet has been in consumers' hands for over a year, Google still has fewer issuer partners than its rival Isis, and with the Merchant Customer Exchange wallet on the horizon, Google now faces competition from the very retailers it seeks to attract.

Apple's iWallet is much anticipated but, due to Apple's notorious secrecy, still very hard to picture. A new patent lends some slight clarity to the company's mobile-payment vision.

Nearly a third of acquirers surveyed still view mobile payments as a threat.

As a new partner for PayPal, an early partner for Isis and the first issuer to sign on to a new method of participating with Google Wallet, Discover Financial Services is establishing itself as a foundation for mobile payments initiatives.

The rumor mill is catching fire as Apple nears its next product launch. Changes to the iPhone, iPad and other systems could affect initiatives at many payments companies.

Google added a virtual card option to its mobile wallet this month, and it's far from the first company to realize that virtual accounts can work where conventional cards just don't cut it.

As competition heats up for mobile-wallet providers, the various underlying technologies are starting to show whether they have long-term viability.

As Google expands its mobile wallet to more phones and, with yesterday's update, potentially more banks, consumers have more opportunities to try it — and to encounter its limitations.

A fresh update to Google's mobile wallet allows users to make payments from any credit or debit card, a move that fundamentally changes the company's approach to working with issuing banks.

Payments security providers and mobile card reader vendors alike will watch with much interest from the sidelines as iZettle AB tries to resolve its restrictions from Visa Europe for processing Visa transactions in the company's core market.

Starting today, the mobile payments company iZettle is saddled with a major restriction in not being able to accept Visa transactions in parts of Europe. Its problem serves as an example to rivals in the U.S. and overseas.

Juan Benitez, the new chief technology officer of Braintree Inc., expects to play a key role in the continued growth of the online and mobile payments provider.

Fiserv is adding a host of mobile tools to its UChoose Rewards bankcard loyalty program, starting with a mobile app that lets customers redeem their rewards points on the spot in stores.