Mobile payments

Mobile apps are becoming the playground and hiding place for cyberattacks and the criminals who orchestrate them.

The Bokis wallet's new app is scheduled for broad release this summer. It's a rare success for collaborative wallets, as others have failed, such as the U.S.'s Softcard and CurrentC, the U.K.’s Weve, Canada’s suretap and Singapore’s SmartWallet.

Automating transit systems is hard because of the local differences in automation and legacy infrastructure. Creating comfort with using mobile technology may be a step toward bringing automation to transport.

The plastic card is an aging tool in payments, but there's still room for innovation in its design and features. Here are a few new concepts that favor technology and style as differentiators.

The move will help consumers directly authorize payments to third parties without providing the physical card or full account details.

The market for fitness trackers is saturated with generic products, and Fitbit needs to differentiate with devices that have capabilities beyond counting users' steps and tracking sleep.

Innovators offer speed, but banks retain customer relationships and a vast product range that can add services to payments.

General Motors is expanding its collaboration with Mastercard to enable drivers to order and pay from inside their cars. It's further evidence THE thing in Internet of Things is the car. However, the convergence of order-ahead payments and connected vehicles must contend with safety concerns that simply aren't a part of any other digitally connected channel.

Bango tightened its hold on the carrier billing market in Indonesia, adding leading mobile network provider Smartfren as a user of one-click payments on Google Play, the app store for Android devices.

Despite the best intentions of Apple and Google to ignite contactless, the QR Code persists as a tenacious legacy technology providing the connective tissue between physical and digital domains. Further evidence of its persistence comes from Facebook.

The shift in payments at hospitality businesses such as restaurants is hard enough, but it's made even more challenging by the pace and breadth of the changes.

Facebook is reportedly rolling out a feature that allows users to scan QR codes to earn incentives to shop at nearby stores.

The B-to-B payments market is ripe for digital innovation. Here are some of the most recent moves to bring B-to-B payments up to speed.

One millennial's take on how credit unions can woo the next generation of members.

Many consumers dread the car buying or leasing process—and with good reason. The process of finding a car, negotiating its price and then further negotiating the financing can be arduous. It's no more fun to begin making the monthly payments.

Kosta Peric, deputy director of digital payments and financial services for the poor at the Gates Foundation, discusses his efforts to expand access to low-cost financial services in developing countries.

As the smartphones become ATM cards, a new set of security risks emerges. Thorough ID protection is necessary to keep no-card ATMs secure.

Plans for Bangladesh to develop a digital financial program for the majority of consumers with no access to banks—many of them in rural areas—are beginning to take shape.

As marijuana legalization spreads throughout the U.S. and the world, companies in the cannabis market must navigate a delicate tangle of new and old regulations. And many payment providers are unwilling to risk working with dispensaries, leading to some inventive workarounds.

The U.S. trucking industry has benefited from key improvements in fuel-payments technology, with streamlined mobile apps from the likes of WEX and Comdata steadily replacing clunky, older paper-and-plastic fleet card programs for buying fuel, services and lodging on the road.