Mobile payments

Few companies can claim to have created a wildly successful mobile wallet app. Even fewer can claim to have done it twice in a row.

More mobile wallet consortiums failed last month, with two folding in New Zealand and Canada, escalating doubts about the prospects for cooperation among competitors in mobile payments.

DMI Inc., a mobile technologies software developer based in Bethesda, Md., has announced a collaboration with Cambodia-based mobile banking provider Wing for a mobile app enabling consumer and commercial funds transfers within the country.

Many times, bitter rivals must set aside their differences for the common good. This has happened a lot in recent years as the payments industry adjusts to the fast pace of innovation.

HSBC may seem like an enthusiastic supporter of third-party wallets, taking the rare step of supporting Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. But these partnerships may prove to be mere stepping stones for a much bigger mobile strategy.

Payment Data Systems (PDS), a San Antonio, Texas-based payment solutions provider, has introduced a streamlined approach for mobile app developers to enable payment acceptance from all Apple Inc. mobile devices.

There may be bumps along the way, but PayPal, Mastercard and Visa all share the same goal, according to Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga.

Seven months after disclosing a test enabling Venmo P-to-P users to buy goods and services in-app, the PayPal unit has rolled out the "Pay with Venmo" feature to all users and expanded the list of participating merchants.

Apple plans to enable Apple Pay on its Safari Web browser by this fall, enabling users to make purchases directly from websites, but its vision for taking Apple Pay to the Web does not seem to extend much further.

Mastercard has announced a partnership with Singapore’s mass-transit agency, Land Transport Authority (LTA), for a contactless payment pilot, marking the first example in Asia of a transit system enabling open-loop payments, Mastercard said.

A year from now, Sionic Mobile will have distributed 100,000 free iBeacons to small businesses, a $1 million marketing play the company hopes secures its place among local stores as they start to adopt mobile technologies.

Now that Verizon has nailed down a deal to buy Yahoo's search and advertising business, it's starting to look a lot more like Google — and it might even have the tools to take a second stab at the payments industry.

For retailers at least, the most important screens are now the small ones.

The notion that if you build it, they will come clearly doesn’t work with mobile payments, and Apple Inc. is ready to try another approach.

Patrons of the GC Express gas station in Caro, Mich., have another choice to make at the pump: Do they want to pay with a credit union's mobile banking app?

To hear PayPal CEO Dan Schulman tell it, his company's agreement with Visa this week is a transformative and history-making deal. But in at least one way, PayPal must make sure that history does not repeat itself.

Visa and Mastercard both face the prospect of becoming "dumb pipes" as other companies innovate on top of their networks. To combat this trend, both are taking steps to be major players in the digital economy.

They say to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and First Data's Clover operation did just that.

Visa and PayPal have been at war for as long as PayPal has existed, and their recent cease fire could allow both companies to overcome the barriers they have spent years building between the worlds of digital and in-store payments.

Mastercard is betting its $920 million investment in the U.K.'s VocaLink gives it a significant edge in many emerging technologies, particularly in regions where it is lagging Visa in traditional card-based business lines.