Mobile point-of-sale

As payments steadily migrate to cloud-based, digital channels with the rise of mobile e-commerce, Intuit’s QuickBooks unit is augmenting its online payment acceptance options with a mobile payment device that links to its accounting software.

The payment company is blending technology from its Swedish subsidiary with other features, such as invoicing, to provide a more robust offering to U.S. merchants.

In a bid to expand contactless card acceptance, Mastercard is testing its Cloud Tap on Phone tech with Napa, Calif.-based IT services provider Computer Engineering Group (CEG).

Fundraising platform TapSimple has raised nearly £1 million (U.S. $1.3 million) in an investment round that will help it to continue to develop fundraising activity in what it describes as an increasingly cashless world.

Less than two months after launching a software-based model to replace traditional point of sale terminals, MagicCube has received a security compliance allowance from Visa for the mobile-driven system.

In the push to get millions of cash-based micro- and small-business merchants to go digital, the two largest card networks are getting a boost from contactless payments' global surge.

EMVCo, the major card brand-supported venture to establish EMV guidelines and specifications, has begun testing a program to determine if consumer mobile devices can securely accept contactless payments — a move that not only hastens the adoption of contactless payments, but renews criticism over which networks control technology and routing decisions.

Several large mobile point of sale projects are hitting the market at once to reach financially troubled retailers, with JPMorgan Chase making use of a three-year-old acquisition to push back against the technology firms that have been gobbling up small-business clients.

As merchants and consumers increasingly favor contactless payments over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Visa is removing obstacles to contactless acceptance.

MagicCube’s i-Accept is a hardware-free option for accepting card and electronic payments that could appeal to cost-conscious small businesses and open up a new market for banks that provide them payments services.

MagicCube has launched i-Accept, a software-based replacement for traditional terminals, allowing acquiring banks and financial services providers to offer merchants an option for contactless and PIN payment acceptance through Android devices.

EMV specifications body EMVCo has started a pilot program to evaluate consumer mobile devices for contactless payment acceptance, enabling vendors to have smartphones and tablets evaluated for possible use by merchants to accept payments without attached card readers.

Longtime finance entrepreneur Jackie Reses, who led Square Capital for the last five years, is leaving the company at the end of the month. Square has not yet named a successor.

Square's gross payment volume tumbled by 15% year-over-year due to COVID-19’s impact, but revenue jumped as online selling rose, Cash App doubled in users and Square enabled almost $900 million in PPP loans.

With its acquisition of Montreal-based Mobeewave, Apple has placed a long-term bet on where it sees the payments industry headed.

Apple Inc. has acquired Mobeewave Inc., a startup with technology that could transform iPhones into mobile payment terminals, according to people familiar with the matter.

Derek Webster, founder and CEO of the mobile point of sale provider CardFlight, talks with Daniel Wolfe, editor-in-chief of PaymentsSource, about the data CardFlight collects on small-business spending, which it updates every week during the coronavirus pandemic.

Square has begun holding onto a portion of some sellers’ payments, demonstrating how liquidity shortages challenge the recovery for both businesses and the companies that process their payments.

The coronavirus shutdowns have tossed businesses into disarray in numerous ways, most notably the tricky transactions that come with operating a restaurant as a drive-through for the first time.

When Fiserv purchased First Data in 2019, it was part of an industrywide push to combine bank and merchant technology under one roof. A year later, a key piece of First Data’s technology — and its top executive — have become Fiserv’s path through the coronavirus crisis.