Economy

SCVNGR’s LevelUp is reducing its mobile wallet’s transaction fee from 2% to 1.95% in its continued attempt to lower interchange costs.

American Express' Serve prepaid account has its roots as a digital wallet, but the card issuer is finding many of its enrollments are coming through a very non-digital process: in-person activations at mobile phone stores.

Biometric technology could eliminate the need to carry a payment card or even a smartphone by allowing users to authorize payments with a fingerprint, handprint, face or retina scan. But the technology has had a rocky past, and each new product comes with new quirks.

Walmart's new "Walmart-2-Walmart" transfer service will enable consumers to send money to each other by using the retail chain's store network.

Ten years from now, members of the acquiring industry may have fond recollections of the nation's transition to mobile payments, says Brian Mooney, CEO of Bank of America Merchant Services.

Ten years from now, members of the payments industry may look back with fondness upon the transition to mobile payments, according to speakers at Transact 14.

Mobile wallets and mobile point of sale systems have tried many tactics to win over merchants by cutting costs. Some vendors have been extremely inventive in how they push cheaper payment options.

The future belongs to mobile payments, but that future remains unclear, as many competing technologies are vying for consumers' attention.

A new order is emerging in the payments industry, and ISOs have a place in it, according to three keynote speakers at Transact 14, the Electronic Transactions Association trade show.

More companies are accepting "altcoins" such as Litecoin and Dogecoin in addition to the more common Bitcoin, showing that even silly currencies based on Internet memes can open merchants to new markets of consumers.

Online small business lender Kabbage has received $270 million in financing from institutional investors.

The quick-service restaurant industry is working up a hearty appetite for mobile payments as a way to make fast food sales happen even faster.

Leaf, the electronic tablet maker, is offering to put acquirers' names, logos and marketing messages on its site to attract merchant services accounts.

Walmart has long been as much a force in financial services as it has been in retail. Here are some of ways Walmart and its executives have shaped - and challenged - the payments industry.

VeriFone CEO Paul Galant says he is reorganizing the terminal maker’s fragmented research and development process and improving its cost structure in an effort to repair the company.

A new cash-forecasting software tool called the Small Business Workbench is designed to take the intuition and guesswork out running a small or medium-sized business.

Square merchants who sell in the online Square Market can now accept payments in Bitcoin.

Even the biggest success stories in mobile payments have skeletons in their closets. But each company learned from its mistakes and was quick to adapt.

Retail and consumer financial services veteran Jane J. Thompson has become a member of the VeriFone Systems Inc. board of directors, the terminal manufacturer announced March 26.