Online payments

For a time, the European payments market was considered fertile ground for the creation of a third card network to compete against heavyweights Visa Europe and MasterCard. This third network never came to be, but European banks kept the idea on the back burner as a way to compete against or even bypass the major card brands.

Visa's agreement to reunite with Visa Europe positions the global card brand to better address a world where payments and commerce have fewer borders.

Gift cards don't seem like the coolest technology in the payments world, but new and reinvented digital gifting platforms are changing the conversation – by borrowing text-messaging staples like emoji.

If Visa and MasterCard seem to be shining an extremely bright spotlight on their tokenization efforts, it's because they view it as vital to their survival.

MasterCard is talking to Merchant Customer Exchange executives about what role the card brand could play in the retailers' CurrentC mobile wallet, but the card brand insists it is just an interested observer in the merchant mobile wallet venture.

PayPal has long desired to be a force in brick-and-mortar payments, a strategy that's more vital than ever as the newly independent company pursues a course that distances it from its former owner, eBay.

With more smartphones coming equipped with technology that can read each user's fingerprint, it might be time to expand this idea and check the fingerprints of the device itself — particularly as mobile and e-commerce see more fraud as a consequence of EMV tightening up security at the point of sale.

Nearly every social media site is experimenting with 'buy buttons' today, but consumers' actual buying habits sometimes challenge the expectations of merchants and platform providers.

PayPal Holdings Inc.'s third-quarter sales missed estimates in its first report since the company's July separation from eBay Inc., revealing a rocky start to its first few months as a stand-alone company.

Making its first entry into the financial exchange space, Dwolla will provide real-time payments clearing and settlement capabilities for the CME Group futures and options marketplace.