Mobile payments

In a sign of the success PayPal has had in marketing its digital wallet, slightly more than half of consumers surveyed said they would choose PayPal over the other mobile payment options available for holiday shopping in stores.

Xoom Corp., a digital payments company based in San Francisco, has launched a mobile bill-pay service in Latin America.

Toronto's new express train will provide a mobile ticketing option, though whether that technology can transfer to the rest of the city's transit system remains to be seen.

Most small merchants are not security experts, but the past year's string of retailer breaches may slowly be changing their mindset.

Square CEO Jack Dorsey told CNN that his company wants to help businesses accept all payment forms, including Apple Pay.

Payments processor Calpian reports growing adoption of its mobile money services in India.

Cardpool is partnering with SCVNGR's LevelUp to give consumers an alternative way to spend unwanted gift cards.

Many companies have found it difficult to build consumer interest in using a dedicated app for payments, particularly for person-to-person payments. Some companies have determined that the best way to keep users engaged is to blend payment capabilities with social networking.

Modern technology has turned the payments industry into a juggling act, particularly for those charged with deploying new techniques to protect payment card data.

Mobile commerce is here and isn’t going away. We can all agree on that. And I think we can all agree that it’s the banking industry’s opportunity to lose, but to date, most banks remain very slow to take action.

Square is adding global support for its Register merchant services app, a move that allows the company to measure demand in new markets before investing in the distribution of its hardware and other services.

An estimated 30% of American smartphone owners will use Apple Pay or Google Wallet while holiday shopping, according to a study commissioned by Stratos Inc.

Mobile payments provider iZettle is expanding into the Netherlands with its payments application, mobile card reader and business management software.

PayPal's support of the Pebble smartwatch, an older and less expensive alternative to the Apple Watch and Android Wear watches, signals the acceleration of mobile payments in devices other than smartphones.

In my dreams, I can walk up to any cashier and make a payment by waving my hand over a terminal, much like Obi Wan Kenobi's "These aren't the droids you're looking for" trick in Star Wars. And that's all I would have to do.

It's not just merchants, issuers and technology companies that are using mobile technology to sell new payment services. As a business software provider, Intuit has been uniquely positioned to link its products to a number of payment initiatives.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), commonly referred to as Metro, will launch a contactless payment pilot to open doors for open-loop mobile wallets to be used for transit fare.

Snapchat, in unveiling a person-to-person payment function this week through a partnership with Square Inc., joins a growing number of companies treating social media accounts as payment instruments.

Square, which made a short-lived attempt at digital gift cards in late 2012, is debuting a new gift card service today with a heavy emphasis on an older payment instrument: plastic.

V-Key, a mobile security provider in Singapore, has received a $12 million investment from the Ant Financial Services Group, the Chinese financial services company that operates Alipay.