Mobile wallets

The path to success is almost never smooth, and many well-known companies have made expensive mistakes along the way. Here are some of the ideas that are no longer around but may never be forgotten.

Payments are inevitably merging with social media, but the mix comes with a clear and very public risk if not handled correctly.

The recent history of mobile wallets includes a lot of crashes and failures, but the people behind those projects are still around and are wiser for their experiences.

LevelUp has worked mostly with smaller merchants. It's relationship with the merchant-focused Chase Pay will give it access to a much larger group of retailers.

Amazon.com has set the standard for e-commerce with fast delivery, invisible payments and many other perks that keep consumers coming back to its site. Increasingly, the e-tailer has been experimenting with ways to streamline the payment process outside of the trappings of its website.

Mobile app photo IDs have had mixed success, but Credntia's betting an overall spike in mobile technology will lead to robust use of its app.

Mobile wallets can be the single location for not just cards, but a wide variety of financial and customer services that banks provide.

The U.S. may never face the type of crisis sparked in India through a government decision to recall high-currency bills to curb fraud. But the countries and their financial institutions have something in common — they welcome any technology that introduces digital money in lieu of cash.

As Starbucks prepares to transition its top executives into new roles, it helps to look back on its history in mobile payments and examine how its management structure helped this plan. Here are a few of the key decisions the company made.

Investors initially jeered Howard Schultz's decision to step down as Starbucks' CEO, though the famed mobile strategy that's helped spur the coffee chain's high performance over the past couple of years doesn't necessarily require the company's founder to be in its biggest office.