Mobile wallets

After Rooam's initial launch of its nightlife payment app in its home base of Washington, D.C., the company has agreed to acquire a similar payment app provider to pave the way for its launch in Chicago.

Customers can access personalized offers through the banking provider’s app, which means every time they earn rewards, find new deals and receive a helpful reminder of a bargain they do not want to miss, writes Mehmet Sezgin, CEO and Founder of MyGini.

What keeps execs up at night in the payments, retail and banking industries? Quite a lot, including disruption from tech giants and competition from foreign rivals.

Despite the fervor over mobile wallets and banking, one day consumers may never need to open a dedicated bank or payment app.

Grab and Mastercard have formed a partnership extending the reach of the ride-hailing app by making a prepaid card available to Grab’s 110 million users across Southeast Asia.

Chinese tourists visiting the U.S. and Canada will be able to use Alipay at HMSHost-operated restaurants in most major airports.

Indian wallet provider Paytm has entered the Japanese market in a joint venture with SoftBank Group and Yahoo Japan.

The payments industry stood out as an active market for mergers and acquisitions during the first three quarters of 2018 with a 33 percent increase in transactions over the same period last year.

To remain competitive, retailers must always have one eye on the future. Mobile wallets offer a strategic platform for retailers to harness and promote emerging payment models, writes Julian Wallis, retail director at Rambus.

PayPal and Walmart are offering a cash-in and cash-out service from PayPal accounts within Walmart stores. It's the first time Walmart, one of the founders the defunct Merchant Customer Exchange, will accept a third-party mobile wallet.

Singtel Group, owner of Singapore Telecom, launched a QR code-based cross-border mobile payments alliance with Thailand’s largest digital bank, Kasikornbank and Thailand’s largest mobile phone operator Advanced Info Service or AIS.

China’s Golden Week started on Monday and with it, global cities and merchants are boldly promoting Alipay in an effort to capture Chinese tourist dollars. At the same time, merchants are building out a competitive acceptance network that could someday rival the major payment card networks.

Sourcemedia's annual PayThink conference is always productive and informative, and this year's event was no exception.

It seems that every year, at least since Apple Pay launched in 2014, it’s the “year of the mobile wallet.” And each year, like clockwork, the banks end up disappointed in the lack of traction in mobile wallet usage and adoption.

Fresh off the heels of having recently raised capital of more than $12 billion in its latest funding round before a potentially lucrative IPO, Ant Financial Group, the operator of Alipay, is rapidly expanding its acceptance network outside of China.

BofA Merrill Lynch will extend Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay support for business cardholders, covering corporate, commercial and purchasing cards in the U.S.

A community bank in Pennsylvania made up its own holiday of sorts — including a product demonstration and a 1982 DeLorean reminiscent of "Back to the Future" — to encourage bank customers to try out new fintech features.

Visa is providing payments support for contactless vending machines dispensing high-fashion accessories at an event during New York's Fashion Week.

Ingenico Group has agreed to collaborate with Toshiba to expand payment types at the point of sale in grocery, pharmacy and other multi-lane environments.

Minal Hasan, a lawyer turned prominent fintech venture capitalist, has strong views on founder dramas, cryptocurrency, and why banks need to step up their technology game.