Mobile payments

The simple act of moving money can have a big impact on any political movement, so banks and payment networks are often caught up in issues of national importance. Here are some recent instances where payments and politics came head-to-head.

China's Alipay already has broad global reach—its mobile wallet is accepted at more than 100,000 retail locations in 70 international markets—but in North America it’s just getting started.

The real lag behind fintech started when banks rested on those online and mobile banking laurels and allowed other players in the mobile space to bypass them in working toward mobile point of sale payment services, writes Jack Jania, senior vice president of strategic payment alliances at Gemalto.

Mastercard and Visa have also opened development centers in India, where digital payments are growing quickly.

The European directive is an opportunity for U.S. institutions to update data protection, writes Seth Ruden, senior fraud consultant for ACI Worldwide.

Both merchants and consumers still see the act of making a payment as a barrier and again look to technology to enhance the experience, writes Chris Koide, senior advisor and vice president of financial services for Bambora North America.

With this year's iPhone announcement getting closer, more rumors are spreading about how Apple plans to overhaul the way its phones handle payments. Some of these have already been confirmed by Apple; others are leaking in code the company has released.

Usernames, passwords, device authentication and even biometrics have vulnerabilities. Behavioral identity is much harder for crooks to crack, writes Robert Capps, a vice president at NuData Security.

For issuers, higher online and mobile conversion rates should translate to increased payment volume transacted on their cards, but it opens up a new avenue for intense jockeying over top of wallet status, writes Michael Jabbara, director of digital development markets for Visa.

Even as mobile payments at the point of sale have been slow or even faltering, as most research indicates, use of mobile for making large money transfers is climbing.

Under PSD2, banks are expected to admit all vetted comers, but how they will connect to them is up to the individual parties, writes Raz Rafaeli, CEO of Secret Double Octopus.

If everyone has a universal digital identity, the documents that identify us in the physical world will no longer be necessary, writes Michael Gorriz, group chief information officer for Standard Chartered Bank.

As technology around us evolves to be more pervasive but less intrusive, the interface between devices and the world around us is adapting to mimic and recognize human senses such as voice and sight.

As the digital age reduces the wear on physical cards, how is it that some consumers are requesting new cards more frequently?

A "smart" token is a regular token on steroids, transmitting the information needed to authorize the transaction together, including enhanced counterpart identity, transaction and invoicing data, writes Marten Nelson, vice president and co-founder of Token.

A popular person-to-person payments app in Italy is getting the backing of Intesa Sanpaolo Bank to become an option at the point of sale in more than 150 retail stores in Milan, Rome and Turin.

Shopping and paying for goods with a smartphone or tablet has been a staple of modern consumerism for years, but mobile wallet adoption is just at its early stages, writes Lisa Stanton, president of InAuth.

Not long ago, self-checkout lanes were seen as an encroachment on traditional retail sales, depriving shoppers of the personal touch that comes with interacting with a cashier. Today, this model is under attack from mobile devices, which are both more high-tech and more personal.

Toronto-based Glance Technologies has introduced a new version of its Glance Pay mobile payments app that uses micro-location sensing technologies along with image recognition, an approach it says is easier for merchants to adopt than QR codes.

Royal Bank of Canada has updated its mobile app to enable personal banking users to ask Siri to pay their bills on iPhone and iPad.