Mobile payments

MasterCard is planting its roots deeper into mobile commerce as a growing number of rivals try to edge it out of the market.

Amazon has released a beta version of an Amazon Wallet App that is currently focused on shopping and discounts, though it could serve as a launch pad for mobile payments.

Bluetooth beacons, which can transmit offers to a nearby customer's smartphone and payment data to a merchant, have huge potential. But to get the most out of beacons, merchants have to place several of them throughout their stores, increasing the overall cost of deploying what is still a very new technology.

Nintendo's Wii U video game console, which has a Near Field Communication reader built into its controller, is finally putting that technology to use to accept payment cards.

A PayPal-run promotion provided a measurable mobile payments boost for Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Artisans, suggesting there's an appetite for a type of mobile payment that rival companies like Square have abandoned.

Mobile wallets are designed to make it easy to pay from a linked credit or debit card, but the process of using loyalty and gift cards can be a bit trickier. CashStar is working to take some of the pain out of this process for users of its gift card platform.

The newly rebranded Visa Checkout is the latest of the card network's attempts to create a more streamlined, digital payment process that moves past the plastic card. Visa and Visa Europe have embarked on many projects around the globe in recent years, targeting e-commerce, mobile payments, P2P and other use cases.

As technology gets more complex, the process of making a payment must remain simple, says The Members Group. The vendor's innovation lab is keeping this philosophy in mind when it designs payment applications for new products like Google Glass

Cardfree, a mobile payments provider run by several of the people who designed the successful Starbucks mobile payment app, is using cloud-based technology to simplify the process of deploying its technology as it eyes international markets.

Mobile point of sale provider Appetize is targeting entertainment venues and music festivals, a niche that's often a testing ground for payments technology.

Check, a bill pay app owned by Intuit, has launched a feature some financial institutions have been positioning as a competitive differentiator: the ability to pay paper bills using the smartphone camera.

At first blush, the new Visa Checkout looks a little too similar to the V.me digital wallet it replaces. But in nearly every aspect of redesigning the product, Visa found some excess baggage that needed to go.

MasterCard will add support for in-app purchasing to its MasterPass digital wallet next month, and has already signed up customers to deploy the feature.

Getting retailers to add mobile payments – or even ban credit cards in favor of mobile – is not impossible. But it just might be easier to get merchants on board with mobile if they haven't even accepted their first payment.

There have literally been dozens of tablet-based point of sale solutions introduced to the retail market and with reason. The demand for a better point of sale software solution has been increasing rapidly.

eBay's two most "extraordinary events" from the first half of the year were a now-resolved conflict with activist investor Carl Icahn and a cyber-attack that created financial headwinds. It is not yet actively searching for a new PayPal president.

Visa introduced a new digital payment system July 16 called Visa Checkout, replacing the V.me digital wallet that formally launched in 2012. The idea is to move away from the "digital wallet" concept and convey a message of simplicity.

Payza is adding new features with the goal of helping merchants improve their conversion rates.

More merchants are interested in accepting payments on tablets and phones, and they have many choices of providers. What are banks and vendors doing to set themselves apart? (Image: ShutterStock)

Powa is reaching out to individual software vendors around the world in an attempt to accelerate integration of its point of sale tools with local mobile apps.