Economy

Signature Card Services, a Los Angeles-based independent sales organization, is making sure its sales agents and merchants understand the benefits of EMV chip cards.

Small-business payment company WePay has named Susan Dunn as general counsel and Susan Oda as vice president of finance.

Windows Phone 8 may often get overshadowed by the iPhone and Android handsets, but developers and retailers are increasingly willing to give Microsoft's open platform a chance.

Starbucks has hit some snags in its attempt to maintain momentum for its mobile card app and its deepening partnership with Square, but for the coffee giant, such issues are an expected part of its aggressive expansion plan.

Virtual Piggy has hired former PayPal executive Iain Herd to be its new global mobile product director.

PayPal has forged numerous partnerships to get its payment system to the point of sale, and as PayPal's technology evolves, the company has to ensure its own offerings don't overlap those of its partners.

In a few short years, Starbucks became one of the most noteworthy companies in mobile payments. These 11 decisions are the key ingredients in its strategy.

The organizers of a new Dallas-based acquiring and processing company called Anovia Payments plan to operate in 23 countries by the end of next year.

Cashcloud SA, a start-up venture in Luxembourg, is testing a mobile wallet and rewards currency throughout much of Europe.

EBay and its payments subsidiary PayPal are aggressively mining consumers' spending data, which they say is vital as shopping expands across mobile, online and physical shopping channels.

Nine Italian banks will begin a nationwide rollout of MyBank, an electronic payment system that allows bank customers in the Single Euro Payment Zone to make e-commerce purchases through online banking.

The major regional debit networks have unanimously chosen Discover¡¦s technology for a common code, or application identifier, for routing EMV debit transactions in the U.S. ¡X but the debate isn¡¦t over yet.

Kim Fitzsimmons has had a remarkable run — first woman CEO of a major acquiring company, current president of the Electronic Transactions Association, immediate past president of Women Networking in Electronic Transactions and recipient of the Midwest Acquirers Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

As VeriFone seeks new leadership, smaller rivals are looking for opportunity.

Dwolla, appealing to its Midwestern roots, has started targeting agrarians with its alternative payment service.

Microsoft Corp. has made several efforts to build new technology for payments, and its mixed successes provide insight into what consumers are willing to tolerate at the point of sale.

If biometrics is ever going to be a part of how consumers make payments, PayTango Inc. figures the best place to find out is on college campuses.

The United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) has accredited Payleven, a mobile payments acceptance company, as a payments institution. Payleven is also now part of MasterCard’s mPOS program.

Chris Larsen has spent several decades in the financial services industry, playing a key leadership role at disruptive companies E-Loan and Prosper, where he had to navigate a tricky and fast-evolving regulatory obstacle course. He will likely draw upon these skills again in his latest role as CEO of OpenCoin.

Plastiq's service asks consumers to pick up the cost of card acceptance. It presents a service fee that is added to the transaction amount, much like sales tax is typically added at the point of sale.