Mobile payments

They’ve scrapped the newspapers and beefed up the food, but most Starbucks cafes in the U.S. don’t look all that different today than they did a decade ago. That’s about to change.

Seven European mobile payment firms have formed a cross-border transaction association covering an addressable market covering 25 million users and 350 banks.

Many in the payments industry insist that cash is becoming less important — but that doesn't mean it will ever go away.

As the U.K. rapidly transitions toward a cashless society — with U.K. Finance predicting that by 2028, just 9% of payments will be in cash — even pocket money is going digital. And the disappearance of tactile interaction with cash changes how kids learn about budgeting.

It took a few years for mobile wallets to get past the aura of just a "cool technology" looking for a problem to solve, but Google Pay and its peers are clearly finding their niche as a way to embed payments with customer engagement tools.

If the retail giants' Merchant Customer Exchange payments venture collapsed under the weight of trying to create a one-size-fits-all mobile wallet to bypass card networks, then the implosion of that joint venture was the best thing that could have happened.

In a world where not all gig workers can afford to be choosy, nor all companies agree to go against internal policy and pay early, innovation in pay advance products can provide a mutually beneficial solution, according to payments marketing consultant Gabriel Onyango.

Amid success stories like Apple Pay, Google Pay and the Starbucks app, there are many wallet apps that failed to gain traction — or squandered it when they did. But there is a lot to learn from their experiences.

In a double-teamed effort to showcase new technologies, Finnish telecom operator Telia demonstrated the use of 5G wireless service in an open-to-the-public face payments pilot with OP Bank.

Miami’s mass transit system is adding contactless card payments on its Metrorail service as it combats ridership decline.