Mobile payments

Millions of consumers without traditional banking relationships can use Apple Pay, now that ADP, a major provider of payroll cards, has joined the mobile payments bandwagon.

NXT-ID and vacation and entertainment club memberships retailer WorldVentures have formed a strategic alliance.

Person-to-person payments are a sudden hotbed of innovation. Many banks and technology companies are rethinking their approach to P2P and finding ways to offer the service in a way that is genuinely appealing to the mobile generation.

The research says it over and over: Banks should move quickly to adopt or develop new payments technology, but it leaves banks with a very long 'to do' list.

Mobile technology companies love baking purchase capabilities into websites and mobile apps, providing myriad choices that make securing merchant buy-in the next big play. But there is a question of whether the rapid growth of in-app purchase may be "too much."

Technology and applications platform Envestnet | Yodlee has partnered with white-label app provider Magpie on a full-service platform.

With emerging payments technology, it's important for legacy companies cover as many bases as possible. For MasterCard, this means putting its technology into everything from jewelry to home appliances to a reimagined take on the classic plastic payment card.

New patents provide a glimpse into how Apple Inc. plans to personalize the payments experience by harnessing Apple’s iMessage channel, bringing it in line with message-based P2P services from Venmo, Facebook, Google and others.

MasterCard is unveiling an app that takes the Internet of Things to its logical extreme, stopping only one step short of becoming Star Trek's instant food replicator.

Transportation is one of the most obvious venues for mobile transactions, though it can also be one of the most difficult, given the legacy infrastructure and the vast scale of most systems.

Payments technology provider Elavon says it is among the first payment processing companies to offer Apple Pay to Canadian businesses.

From fairly humble beginnings three years ago with the low-fee Bluebird prepaid Amex card and the Serve platform, Walmart has gotten more and more aggressive — and welcoming — with payments innovation.

Bitcoin Direct has a heavyweight behind its latest digital wallet – literally.

Near Field Communication has been the burr in the saddle of emerging payments technology these past five years.

Glacier Restaurants, having examined the wide array of choices to tap mobile technology, has concluded that the best entry-level mobile transaction is the digital gift card.

When it comes to online commerce, the point at which money changes hands has often been the moment a sale falls apart.

It's impossible to predict the future, but many companies in the payments industry have already made commitments that will shape the year ahead. Here are a few things to expect in 2016.

Since the dawn of the modern mobile payments era, Starbucks has positioned itself as the poster child for how the technology can resonate with customers. And it's not about to rest on its laurels.

Square has long enjoyed the first-mover advantage that came with democratizing payment acceptance. But as the payments industry advanced and Square's own needs became more complex, the company is more challenged than ever to stay relevant, even to the merchants who accept credit cards only because Square made it easy.

It's hard to come by hard data on consumers actually using mobile wallets to pay in stores, but these consumers do exist.