Mobile payments

Facebook's Messenger app will soon let users send funds to one another, and the social network's use of payments to drive advertising and other business services is unlikely to stop there.

Of the many smartwatch apps teased during last week's Apple Watch reveal, only one came from a bank: Citigroup.

Apple gets it. The way to make things appealing is to make them simple, convenient and valuable for consumers.

Fime has updated a validation tool with Barnes International for issuers to test Visa's cloud-based Host Card Emulation processes and payment tokens for contactless payments.

Square's decision to scuttle its consumer-facing Order app shines an uncomfortable spotlight on the challenges inherent in creating technology that appeals to both consumers and merchants.

Wirecard, a German white-label electronic payment provider, will offer its "boon"-branded mobile payment app to Drillisch, a German telecommunications provider.

The mobile wallet landscape has always been dynamic, and recent consolidation and upheaval have changed it once again. As older products fade or rethink their model, newcomers are bringing bold new ideas to market.

Sibling rivalry can be fierce. While Visa Europe pushes its own technology for online and mobile commerce — setting the stage for Apple Pay in the U.K. — its brother VocaLink is readying the launch of Zapp, a payment system that that cuts the card networks out of the equation by directing purchases through bank accounts.

Square has boosted its technology capabilities while expanding its presence in Canada through the acquisition of Toronto-based Kili Technology Corp.

Apple Pay and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have a lot of appeal for banks looking to stay at the cutting edge of digital payments. But security and compliance risks are part and parcel of these innovations.

Planet Payment is working with Pay.On to leverage its international gateway products.

Yoyo, a QR code-based mobile wallet provider, is cutting through the noise to find a working strategy for its product.

Starbucks Corp. will expand its mobile- ordering service to four Western states, building on a test that lets customers in Portland, Oregon, transmit their requests for lattes and mochas before entering a store.

A lot of change in the payments business is unavoidable, such as EMV-chip cards and mobile commerce, so the high-tech card maker Stratos plans to replace its cards each year as part of a membership program.

It is fitting that Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the Apple Watch presentation by showing off a Mickey Mouse watch face. The Apple Watch shares a lot more than its design sense with Disney's successful MagicBand wearables.

Digital money transfer company Xoom is working with the bank HBL to enable instant deposits in more Pakistani bank accounts.

James Anderson, senior vice president of shared platform services in the emerging payments group at MasterCard, has been "droning on" for nearly a decade about contactless payments. And the industry is finally catching up.

The 20 women we honor this year have advanced the pace of innovation, challenged competitors and fueled the creativity and ambitions of their colleagues.

Transfast has upped its game in Kenya, offering instant deposits to three banks in the country and connecting its service with M-Pesa mobile money accounts, a poster child for mobile payment success.

Merchants are far from helpless bystanders as Apple and banks sort out who is responsible for stopping fraudulent cards from being enrolled in the Apple Pay mobile wallet.