Mobile wallets

Bank of America has added new features to its mobile banking app in an effort to build flexibility in mobile wallet options and more closely tie payments to financial services.

As more of China's citizens engage in travel and commerce across the nation's borders, more companies want to help them pay and collect money. Many of China's dominant payment brands are extending their reach globally, but U.S. and European companies are also focused on this audience.

For London-based fintech provider Tramonex, seeing so many Chinese tourists visiting the U.K. meant a chance to join the success of WeChat Pay. But how to accomplish this was less clear.

Transit systems provide a clear use case for mobile payments, allowing commuters to avoid lining up at ticketing machines when they're already in a rush to get to their destination. But many of the perks of mobile wallets, such as targeted offers, don't apply to them.

Consumers are increasingly positive about loyalty programs, mobile ads, chatbots and making a purchase from a smartphone, despite an early resistance to changing their payment habits when mobile wallets debuted years ago.

Technology never stands still, and even the most successful mobile wallets in the market need to keep pace with the needs of consumers and merchants. A few are making changes that position them for new markets and platforms in the near future.

Starbucks customers will soon be able to send Starbucks gifts to other iOS device users via Apple Inc.’s iMessage platform with Apple Pay.

The 'pays' and PayPal are among the technology companies that have build mobile wallets. As these apps add financial services, banks must consider building their own apps.

Underbanked consumers will have an incentive to initiate mobile payments through PaySwag, an application that will issue rewards for using a smartphone to make a payment and allowing redemption at any time.

Ukraine-based KredoBank has launched a digital wallet that uses host card emulation (HCE) technology to enable contactless mobile payments with Android handsets, and it’s backing the new service with a promotional campaign to win prizes on Facebook.

Google Wallet may have passed the in-store and in-app payments baton to Android Pay late in 2015, but it has simplified its person-to-person payment capabilities by extending its Gmail integration to Android phones.

The technology from MCX's CurrentC wallet, which never formally launched, will get new life with Chase Pay, which debuted in 2016 with Starbucks, Best Buy and commitments from MCX members such as Walmart.

The move may prove particularly helpful in reaching rural parts of India, where the latest smartphone technology has not arrived.

The steady march of smartphone technology makes mobile wallet adoption seem inevitable, but consumers still need convincing.

Bank of the West waited until the fall of 2016—many months longer than most banks—to offer its customers any mobile wallet. And when it did finally join the mobile wallet craze, it went all in.

The Most Influential Women in Payments are the ones taking risks with new ideas and investments, and developing the technology that will forever change the way people handle money. Not only do they set an example for their peers, they are unafraid to learn from newcomers and are diligent about encouraging a freshness and diversity of ideas.

Digital transactions tied to travel are growing quickly, putting pressure on airlines to support third party mobile wallets and other e-commerce options.

London-based Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) has purchased Malta-based financial services software development company Spectre Technologies.

India's latest government-supported payments initiative, Bharat QR, officially launched on Monday, aiming to provide an interoperable mobile payments platform linking small merchants and consumers across channels via several major card payment networks.

The attack goes after the social network customer service channels for issuers and other financial services, and is hard for consumers to spot.