Mobile payments

Open development techniques have contributed to a boom in online and mobile commerce by making it possible for more applications to interact with one another, but now more attention is being devoted to how fraudsters exploit these systems at merchants, payment companies and card issuers.

PayPal's split from eBay was supposed to sweeten its appeal to merchants, but it’s also stoking rivals in the payments industry — in particular Visa CEO Charlie Scharf.

The last three of Canada’s large banks today said they’ve launched Apple Pay, joining the country's Interac debit network and the company's few other financial providers to enable Apple's digital wallet to completely blanket Canada.

It’s too soon to know how the futuristic Internet of Things (IoT) — the array of Web-connected devices and home appliances — will handle payments, but older concepts such as Near Field Communication and prepaid cards already have an advantage.

PayNearMe has long offered a service designed for consumers who prefer to use cash in a digital world, but even it has to accept the need to get on board with electronic payments.

Samsung announced a partnership with Citibank Singapore Limited enabling support for Samsung Pay on newer Samsung handsets in the Singapore region. Samsung Pay will launch there this summer following a pilot, the technology maker said in a May 30 press release.

EMV certification provider Fime has received EMVCo approval to support the use of its global test tool for the development of payment applications that use a handset's secure element.

How can banks benefit from a spurt of mobile payments innovation that is enabling faster checkouts with the advantage of greater security for customers?

Coin-counting machines came into vogue in the 1990s when Commerce Bank started installing "Penny Arcades" in its branches throughout New Jersey. They were a huge hit for a while, but banks have soured on the machines in recent years as usage declined and maintenance costs increased.

PayPal next month will launch a new mobile app for its iOS and Android users, but anyone using the PayPal app designed for Windows Phone, BlackBerry or the Amazon Fire handset is out of luck.

Smartphones are an important window into understanding underbanked customers, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a report released Wednesday in conjunction with a meeting of the agency's advisory committee on economic inclusion.

For a customer to switch from a tried and true payment method to a new one, the provider must be able to offer a unique payment experience which offers concrete and obvious advantages like top-level security, unique rewards and unprecedented agility. For these reasons, the Merchant Customer Exchange's retailer-led mobile payments initiative CurrentC was bound to fail.

Apple Pay reached its sixth country last month when American Express extended it to customers in Singapore, and now banks issuing MasterCard and Visa products are adding its support as well.

As more mobile apps and businesses push plastic payments to the background, they also give prepaid card accounts a chance to reclaim the spotlight.

When TableSafe launched in 2011 under the name Viableware, it was a simpler time in payments technology and the company had a simpler product to offer — a tablet-like check holder that lets customers complete card payments without leaving the table.

Wells Fargo & Co. has joined the growing ranks of banks that are building their own branded mobile wallets, pressuring other financial institutions to act quickly to keep pace.

Visa’s efforts to shed cash payments in Dubai and surrounding regions includes getting an early jump on new innovation, and it hopes a new development hub will serve as a focal point for local developers.

Robots aren't yet coming to take over, but they will be taking orders — and MasterCard payments — at a handful of Pizza Hut locations in Asia.

While the current phase of the U.S. chip card migration is still far from the finish line, attention is turning to the 'next' EMV migration at gas stations, which figures to be just as challenging.

Google revealed a dizzying number of projects at this year's Google I/O event, and it is courting developers to turn each of them into a thriving commerce platform. Whether or not Android Pay was mentioned by name, it was an undercurrent of nearly every offering.