Mobile payments

Fleet card provider WEX is realizing an unexpected marketing opportunity in preparations for Winter Storm Jonas: Its mobile app can enable snowbound users to instantly locate of the nearest operating gas station.

Starbucks' new order ahead mobile feature is off to a fast start, handling more than six million transactions per month only three months after the feature's launch.

The future of retail isn't happening behind the counter; it's happening in the aisles, on mobile phones and at a much faster pace than even the Internet can accommodate. And all of these ideas were the subject of excitement and debate at the National Retail Federation's conference in New York.

Telcos, banks and technology companies have all taken their shots at mobile wallets, but as mobile commerce matures, the niche players are reaping the biggest rewards, according to Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer.

The newest audience flocking to omnichannel shopping is the one no one invited—fraudsters.

Global Payments Inc. has finalized an agreement to distribute Mobeewave’s contactless mobile card acceptance technology to its Canadian clients beginning this spring.

Starbucks has integrated its mobile pre-ordering and payment feature into its Android app in the U.K.

More companies are using installment payments to lure consumers away from credit cards, and MasterCard is testing a model that could lure them back.

Consumers’ growing dexterity with banks’ mobile apps has been a welcome shot in the arm for card-linked, merchant-funded marketing programs.

To promote Android Pay, Google dangled up to $25 in gift cards to boost enrollment. Now the web search giant is offering a different set of rewards to spur repeat usage of the mobile payments service.

Ingenico Group has unveiled a new brand, Ingenico ePayments, as the latest step for the payment terminal maker in its evolution to becoming a provider of diversified global payment services.

First Data has unveiled Clover Go, a new EMV-enabled card reader for mobile devices and the latest device in its Clover mobile point of sale product line.

The Barclaycard app now will allow Near Field Communication-enabled contactless payments on supported Android devices.

Apple Pay's international expansion has been slow enough that other mobile wallet providers are working to get out in front in markets such as Latin America.

A year ago, a few trends were already clear to us, but many were just taking shape. Here's what we told you to expect from 2015, and how each of these predictions played out.

Cash remains the payment method of choice for nearly four out of five consumers needing to pay someone back, including the notoriously tech-savvy millennials.

Sometimes a big crash throttles the peloton and gives a few riders a chance to breakaway. In 2016, that is what we will see in the world of mobile payments. As EMV and Loyalty 1.0 eat the pavement, they will enable mobile payments, Loyalty 2.0 and new Uber-style apps to separate from the pack.

Apple Pay made a big splash when it arrived in late 2014, but has made few ripples since then, as consumers stuck to their old payment habits and banks in international markets proved reluctant to provide their support.

Through a partnership with Intel, terminal maker Ingenico Group has developed a contactless payment technology that is being used in a Panasonic tablet.

The majority of consumers, or about 70%, still rely exclusively on banks for their financial services, but that figure will likely slip below 60% within the next five years as technology companies chip away at banks' grip on financial services, a new survey from TransferWise, a London-based money-transfer company, predicts.