Mobile payments

Getting a new payment terminal with advanced capabilities is not unlike getting a new phone or computer with its bells and whistles — there's so many new features that some will no doubt go ignored.

Passengers are warming to non-travel mobile payments, and the technology is advancing to enable mobile payments in flight, writes Kristian Gjerding, CEO of CellPoint Mobile.

Amazon is working aggressively to change the way people shop — especially in the grocery space — but not all of its activities focus on products and store design. The e-commerce giant has also influenced a lot about how people use their payment cards.

In the race between China’s two leading mobile wallets—Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay—to expand their users and merchants around the world, WeChat Pay is drawing even in Europe.

The global push to expand financial inclusion takes many paths, based on the challenges—and unique market advantages—in countries where vast portions of the population lack access to modern banking services.

Corporate fleet card giant WEX is getting into the consumer market for the first time through a partnership with GasBuddy, an app that helps drivers find the nearest gas station with current fuel prices.

The task at hand for retail app developers is increasingly clear: Make it as easy as possible for consumers to pay through a mobile device.

This morning it was announced that Fiserv is to acquire UK mobile payments veteran Monitise for 70 million pounds ($88.72 million). This is quite a bargain considering that at its peak, Monitise was valued at around 2 billion pounds. But beyond the firesale price tag, what exactly does Fiserv get out of this?

So far, the use cases for digital payments from connected cars seem too specific to spark a widespread shift in consumer habits. But connected cars may yet prove to be drivers of change.

Due in part to the U.S.'s lackluster adoption of contactless cards, mobile wallets had a slow and difficult time gaining hold among consumers and merchants that were unfamiliar with the tap-and-pay process or didn't have the right technology. The opposite problem plagues Canada, where contactless cards are so widely used that mobile adds little value.

The financial institution-owned person-to-person network formally went live Monday, enabling direct transfer of funds across 30 U.S. FIs. There are a lot of questions around whether it can compete with the current kings of P-to-P — Venmo and PayPal — but Zelle may not be aiming to take them head-on just yet.

The bank-owned person-to-person network formally went live Monday, enabling direct transfer of funds across 30 U.S. financial institutions. There are a lot of questions around whether it can compete with the current kings of P-to-P — Venmo and PayPal — but Zelle may not be aiming to take them head-on just yet.

This morning the bank owned P-to-P network, Zelle, is formally going live, enabling direct transfer of funds across thirty U.S. financial institutions over the course of the next twelve months. There are a lot of questions around whether it can compete with the current kings of P-to-P — Venmo and its parent company PayPal — but Zelle may not be aiming to take them head-on just yet.

Grocery shopping may not seem conducive to e-commerce due to the category's massive cart sizes and perishable goods, but many companies are trying to put a digital spin on the process. Here are a few of the latest innovations.

Hoping to convince e-commerce merchants to let Facebook target offers to customers, the social media giant is placing a strong emphasis on “dynamic ads” that include payment buttons.

ExxonMobil's contactless and mobile payment system, Speedpass, is well known as a way to help drivers accelerate the payment process after they fill up on gas. The system's latest updates focus less on the payment process and more on flexibility and rewards.

Amazon customers in Japan can now charge purchases to their mobile phone bill through a new deal with Bango.

Ant Financial's Alipay, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, broke into the U.S. last year through a deal with First Data, and now it's expanding in Canada—alongside Tencent's WeChat—through partnerships orchestrated by Canadian tourism authorities.

One MobiKwik Systems Pvt., one of India’s largest digital-payment providers, is pushing back its target for profitability by a year as it invests more in its business to capitalize on the government’s shock ban on high-value rupee notes.

As with anything high-tech, early predictions held that millennial men would be first to adopt mobile wallets. But two new research studies are casting doubt on the assumptions about the roles gender and age are playing in the mobile payments adoption curve.