Mobile payments

Smaller banks are turning to mobile payments in droves, though the services still mostly resemble Web banking on a mobile device — support for full-featured mobile wallets is still in its infancy.

Quatrro, a business processing company based in India, is launching payment processing services for credit unions, community banks and other payment companies in the U.S.

Square has eliminated holds and deposit limits for manually entered transactions in the U.S., and is marketing these changes to frustrated PayPal users.

Swedish mobile payment company Seamless has introduced its SEQR mobile wallet in Belgium in collaboration with bpost bank, with an initial deployment at Belgian McDonald’s locations.

Even if it takes the payments industry months to respond to Google's use of Host Card Emulation, which simulates the signal from a Near Field Communication chip, the technology is a potential game changer.

Google Inc. sent a few tremors through the payments industry when announcing its newest Android operating system can perform contactless payments without high-level access to NFC hardware. No one could blame SimplyTapp CEO Doug Yeager if he were cheering Google on from the sidelines.

Optimal Payments Plc and Channel 1 Media are bringing online and mobile payments to fans of professional sports teams in North America.

Visa Inc. has expanded the role of French secure-chip testing expert Fime, which will support the card network's mobile payment application testing.

Hybrid PayTech World Inc. is offering programs to allow application developers to incorporate the company’s multi-operating-system payments technology.

Requiring customers to sign up for online banking before they can enroll in mobile could deter would-be digital customers from some transactions.

Visa Inc. has expanded the role of French secure-chip testing expert Fime, which will support the card network's mobile payment application testing.

Rabobank plans to deploy Near Field Communication-based mobile payments in the Netherlands.

This month, Microsoft and Sony are launching new machines with a whole new take on games, movies — and payments. And they're not the only ones applying video game strategies to the payments industry.

Payment processor Vantiv is partnering with mobile carrier Sprint to launch a tablet-based mobile point of sale system for merchants.

MasterCard's support of Rogers Communications Inc.'s Suretap mobile wallet makes the emerging payments landscape in Canada a little more crowded — and makes MasterCard's strategy a little more diverse.

Visa's payWave contactless technology will power a new Orange Cash mobile payment system that will provide loyalty programs and coupons for consumers across France.

Microsoft's Larry Hryb, known to gamers as Major Nelson, recently posted a six-second video demonstrating how the company's new Xbox console redeems codes for games and subscription services. It's six seconds that many in the payments industry should watch.

German carrier E-Plus Gruppe plans to give Near Field Communication payments a boost with a mobile wallet that also uses QR codes for redeeming loyalty points and discount vouchers.

Continuing its international expansion through partnerships, U.S.-based EVO Payments International LLC has acquired a controlling interest in Polish financial institution PKO Bank Polski's merchant acquiring arm.

The Twitter initial public offering culminated with the ringing of the New York Stock Exchange's opening bell Thursday, the social media site becoming a public company valued at more than $14 billion. But Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey isn't done with Wall Street yet, as he's reportedly begun exploring an IPO for Square, the mobile payments startup he co-founded in 2009.