Mobile payments

As the holiday shopping season kicks off, retailers are preparing for an influx of payment volume from shoppers and scammers alike. Here are a few of the problems they face.

Stripe Inc. raised new financing that values the startup at about $9 billion, cementing its status as a major player in the crowded digital payments space and heralding a possible initial public offering.

U.S. fuel cards were a relatively complacent niche until a few years ago, when a wave of consolidations and digital innovations transformed the $66 billion-plus industry into a hotbed of competition.

The spread of new payment technology and omnichannel commerce are changing the way people shop during the holiday season, even in brick-and-mortar stores. Here are a few noteworthy trends this season.

Few of Apple's numerous patent applications make it to market, but if the consumer electronics giant follows through on one filed last week, iPhone users may have the Siri virtual assistant helping them with person-to-person payments through the iMessage platform.

EBay Inc., struggling to turn itself around and catch up with dominant Amazon.com Inc., has invented a new day: Mobile Wednesday.

The app will be available at 7,500 Starbucks locations in the U.S. and 1,400 Best Buy locations, and is part of a much broader rollout that's expected to last into early next year.

India's cash crisis may threaten the country's traditional wedding season. Uber is attempting to solve some of the problem with a new car booking service.

Biometrics has long had an interoperability gap. Visa is trying to address that with a new project that brings flexibility to biometric options.

The Scan & Go mobile app went live last month at Sam’s Club, allowing consumers to scan their own items as they shop and pay within the app, an innovation that could cut down on checkout lines.

Charitable giving is a big part of contactless payment innovation, and Quest Payment Systems is hoping to gain share in the Australian non-profit market.

Connected devices is the key innovation behind Optus and Frank Green's coffee cup that can also support contactless payments.

The two-year old APASS has helped Alibaba persuade wealthier consumers to up their spending at Tmall and Taobao shopping emporiums.

The app is based on a Masabi’s ticketing platform used by agencies and operators such as London’s Thames Clippers, Preston Bus, New Orleans’ RTA, Boston’s MBTA, Transport for Athens, Los Angeles’ Metrolink and New York’s MTA.

Typically merchants post signs at EMV terminals to tell their customers how they work, or that they should keep swiping. Starbucks is taking a more forward-thinking approach by treating EMV frustration as a mobile marketing opportunity.

India's abrupt recall of its larger bills — a bid to crack down on tax evasion — was a crash course in how to adapt to a cash shortage. Was this an opportunity for mobile payments or a failing of the overall financial services system?

Mastercard has launched its quick-response mobile payments system in India through its Masterpass mobile wallet, designed to help mobile banking users complete purchases through their mobile phones at the physical point of sale.

OfferUp, a secondhand mobile marketplace, closed its latest funding round $11 million higher than previously reported and added PayPal co-founder Max Levchin as an investor.

If a consumer is willing to shop online through a mobile device while sitting on the toilet, retailers need to be in the bathroom with that shopper during the holiday season. At least, PayPal sees it that way.

Merchants are still slow to adopt mobile point of sale systems. But improvements in usability and longer battery life can turn that around.