Mobile payments

Chase is working with Apple to vet potential developers and merchants after more than 500 people attended and responded to Chase's two live webinars about its three Apple Pay developer labs in Columbus, Ohio, Tampa, Fla., and San Francisco, Calif.

Mobile payment provider Powa is partnering with DataCap Systems to shorten the time it takes merchants to deploy mobile point of sale applications, a move the companies hope will provide differentiation in a crowded marketplace.

Mobile payment company Boku has acquired German-based mopay, adding considerable carrier billing volume and clients at a time when Boku and other payment companies face increasing competitive threats from new players.

Facebook's peer-to-peer (P2P) transfer app is currently only a screen grab circulating around Silicon Valley, but payments companies should brace for a series of competitive apps from the social network, according to industry experts.

Square Inc. has closed its $150 million Series E funding round, putting the payments technology company at a $6 billion valuation, according to a New York Times blog.

With the coming split from eBay, PayPal is poised to become one of the new leaders challenging the plastic card and magnetic stripe hegemony.

Payment companies are building mobile loyalty and financial literacy programs to target today's digitally-savvy kids, but are discovering a physical presence is still necessary for redemption.

Hamstrung by low consumer and merchant adoption, multi-account cards are still a product in search of a market. But Stratos Inc. believes Bluetooth technology is the tonic that will lure users.

Mobile handset manufacturer Samsung is tossing its hat into the mobile payment market in China, which is in its early stages but offers substantial opportunity.

The transit card may be on its way to joining tokens in the dustbin, as huge contactless payment deployments in cities like Beijing add flexibility for commuters and reveal the broader utility of Near Field Communication.

EBay and PayPal were once rivals, but in 2002 they joined to become a single company. Since then, PayPal has worked to move beyond the confines of its parent's online auction site. It is now well prepared for its planned spinoff.

Boku Inc. is working with European mobile network operators to enable users to buy physical goods through its carrier billing service, which previously faced regulatory constraints that limited it to digital content sales.

Capital One's new Capital One Wallet is a cardholder app for Apple's devices that uses an Android-like pattern-recognition feature for authentication.

Despite the controversy over bending handsets and a broken iOS update, Apple’s iPhone 6 remains the must-buy addition to the smartphone sector, continuing to draw in the crowds.

By hiring former American Express executive Dan Schulman to lead an independent PayPal, the company is betting that his expertise — bringing innovation to a well-established international payments company — can ensure PayPal's survival.

InComm will work with the Merchant Customer Exchange to support digital gift card and loyalty programs for retailers, while also expanding MCX's CurrentC mobile wallet to more locations.

EBay's planned spinoff of PayPal, announced today, is a necessary and inevitable response to the influx of disruption coming to the payments industry from unconventional sources. As companies like Amazon.com, Apple and Wal-Mart take a growing interest in the payments market, PayPal's status as a unit of a rival e-commerce company limited its role.

Shopkick is being acquired by SK Planet (SKP), and aims to replicate success of its Seoul-based buyer, which serves three-quarters of South Korea's population of 50 million.

During World War II, Lockheed Martin created a program called Skunk Works, which used specialized teams of developers for lightning-fast brainstorming to accelerate the research and development of new planes. That is how a lot of payments innovation is getting done today.

Wal-Mart is both a powerhouse in retail and a pioneer in financial services. The company has championed numerous initiatives in prepaid and mobile payments, and it has also been quick to push back on technologies it does not like.