Mobile payments

Kerv, a London-based developer of a payment-capable ring, has reached its funding goal on the Kickstarter crowdfunding site.

Dallas' transit system has launched a two-year project to enable contactless payments, a move the project team hopes will boost transit use and mobile wallet adoption, two areas in which supporting infrastructure is growing faster than consumer adoption.

When Apple revealed that Starbucks plans to accept Apple Pay in its U.S. stores, the move spoke less to Apple's persuasiveness and more to the fallout of the country's ongoing shift to EMV security.

EMV card acceptance has often been pitched as a catalyst for mobile wallets, since the terminal upgrades needed to accept EMV-chip cards could also enable contactless mobile payments. But mobile and EMV are not always on the same path.

Apple Inc. is rolling out its mobile-payments service for select Starbucks Corp. stores by the end of the year, and will reach 7,500 company-owned stores in 2016, the coffee chain said in a statement. KFC stores and Chili’s Grill & Bar will make Apple Pay available in next year as well, Jennifer Bailey, the Apple vice president in charge of the service, said at the Code/Mobile conference Oct. 8.

The British government and a trade association are trying to nationalize open loop contactless payments for transportation, a project of staggering scope designed to provide seamless rider transactions for buses, trains and local mass transit systems.

Mobile person-to-person payment systems are poised to grow to about 126 million adult users by 2020 with nearly 60% of all mobile device owners using the service, according to newly published data from Javelin Strategy & Research.

Samsung may have a hard time convincing users of Samsung Pay that a breach of its LoopPay technology by Chinese hackers has nothing to do with payment card data or the security of the mobile wallet.

When Cumberland Farms said this month that it had processed $1 billion worth of gas via its decoupled debit card over the course of nearly three years, it was the latest example of the power of the decoupled debit card. And yet, other than Target's RED card, decoupled debit has barely moved beyond the convenience and petroleum segment.

The major card networks operate from a position of strength as among the first movers in providing tokenization, but they must move with the market if they want to hold that position.