Mobile wallets

The institution launched the PayQwig digital wallet in 2015 and made the mobile app available earlier this year to link a mobile wallet to Tesco shoppers' Clubcard to earn points each time it was used.

Targeting customers and linking mobile marketing to in-store sales is a challenge for retailers, but mobile payments can make a difference, writes Marissa Tarleton, chief marketing officer for RetailMeNot.

In a market seemingly dominated by "Pays" from smartphone makers, a few companies are taking a much different approach to mobile payments. Here are some of the more extreme examples.

When retailers run tests in which coupon offers are delivered directly to the Apple Pay or Android Pay mobile wallet, rather than as a simple text notification, the redemption potential skyrockets 300%.

Mobile wallet adoption in the U.S. is slow, and the payments industry has only itself to blame.

By eliminating the friction of a cardless ATM, the utility value of the mobile wallet has just increased by an order of magnitude, writes Dan McKinney, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Finxact.

Ask any consumer what their most-used mobile wallet is, and you'll get one answer. Ask an issuer or a merchant, and the answer could be vastly different. Here's why.

Among consumers who currently use at least one mobile payment app regularly, 29% say they have used Apple Pay in the past month, but other wallets are close behind.

Looking at the rise in issuers that support mobile wallets, one might think the concept has finally gone mainstream. But the actual usage numbers remain dismal, with few indications of what — if anything — will steer the market toward mobile payments.

From gold plating to silicon guts, the plastic card is not what it used to be. Here are some of the most ambitious attempts to make credit and debit cards relevant in a high-tech world.