Mobile payments

Tesco has begun testing a system that lets Google Glass owners fill a shopping cart without setting foot in the store, but this test may have a limited audience, as it launched just days before Google stopped selling its high-end headset.

Google wants to buy the telco-led mobile payments consortium Softcard, according to the technology news site TechCrunch, which cited unnamed sources.

The upcoming Apple Watch, which does not have a built-in fingerprint reader for Touch ID authentication, will use a four-digit passcode to engage Apple Pay for mobile payments.

The ATM is one of the oldest self-service technologies in banking, and mobile is one of the newest. But surprisingly, this odd couple of technologies has a lot of synergy.

Merchant acquirers can learn a lot from their new competitors about how to stand out in a crowd where everybody appears to be the same.

Mobile payments provider Spindle signed an agreement with Transaction Data USA, a payments industry consulting firm, to expand the sale of its products to merchants.

Retailers are adopting many innovations to counter the lure of online shopping, which is becoming more of a threat to brick-and-mortar stores as e-commerce spreads to a growing number of Internet-connected devices.

Wirecard, the German payments company, has introduced a wearable wristband for contactless transactions.

PayPal is revamping its lineup of mobile point of sale offerings, expanding developer tools and adding EMV in the U.S. But its new support for Microsoft devices may have the most impact as it pursues merchants that can already get payment capabilities elsewhere.

In a push to get commuters in Athens, Greece away from paying cash for public transit tickets, the mobile ticketing provider Masabi will add MasterCard's MasterPass as a payment option.

Western Union has begun offering a service that allows U.S. residents to send money to Mexican bank accounts.

The holding company for 15 banks, which is approaching $20 billion in assets, has been testing cardless ATM transactions since the summer of 2013. Now, it is expanding the capability to dozens of machines — marking it the first institution in the U.S. to take the technology, powered by the vendor FIS, into production.

Government officials in Gujarat will partner with MasterCard to pursue a goal of being the first state in India to have a digital payments system.

While many agree that usernames and passwords should give way to more advanced identity management, progress toward this goal has been extremely slow.

The telco-led mobile wallet venture Softcard has laid off 60 employees and is consolidating its offices, a sign that the company's staffing may have been oversized compared to its opportunities in the market.

The San Jose-based payment terminal maker Verifone launched a new mobile operating system and is separately working with Samsung on new mobile point of sale projects.

Global payment solutions provider Elavon has partnered with Verizon to bring mobile point of sale products to Verizon's small-business customers.

Tritium Partners has acquired a majority stake in Giact Systems LLC, an electric payments service.

The extended leave of Starbucks' chief operating officer, Troy Alstead, could indicate that last year's creation of the COO post has succeeded in furthering the coffee chain's mobile payments initiatives.

Apple Pay will expand to Canada this year, according to a report by 9to5Mac, a news site that follows Apple's activities.