Mobile payments

For a customer to switch from a tried and true payment method to a new one, the provider must be able to offer a unique payment experience which offers concrete and obvious advantages like top-level security, unique rewards and unprecedented agility. For these reasons, the Merchant Customer Exchange's retailer-led mobile payments initiative CurrentC was bound to fail.

Apple Pay reached its sixth country last month when American Express extended it to customers in Singapore, and now banks issuing MasterCard and Visa products are adding its support as well.

As more mobile apps and businesses push plastic payments to the background, they also give prepaid card accounts a chance to reclaim the spotlight.

When TableSafe launched in 2011 under the name Viableware, it was a simpler time in payments technology and the company had a simpler product to offer — a tablet-like check holder that lets customers complete card payments without leaving the table.

Wells Fargo & Co. has joined the growing ranks of banks that are building their own branded mobile wallets, pressuring other financial institutions to act quickly to keep pace.

Visa’s efforts to shed cash payments in Dubai and surrounding regions includes getting an early jump on new innovation, and it hopes a new development hub will serve as a focal point for local developers.

Robots aren't yet coming to take over, but they will be taking orders — and MasterCard payments — at a handful of Pizza Hut locations in Asia.

While the current phase of the U.S. chip card migration is still far from the finish line, attention is turning to the 'next' EMV migration at gas stations, which figures to be just as challenging.

Google revealed a dizzying number of projects at this year's Google I/O event, and it is courting developers to turn each of them into a thriving commerce platform. Whether or not Android Pay was mentioned by name, it was an undercurrent of nearly every offering.

Paul Fiore's path from online banking vendor Digital Insight to credit union mobile payment venture CU Wallet included a stop in the film business, where he saw firsthand the tricky task of bringing modern technology to a legacy industry where cooperation is in short supply.