Online payments

Sibling rivalry can be fierce. While Visa Europe pushes its own technology for online and mobile commerce — setting the stage for Apple Pay in the U.K. — its brother VocaLink is readying the launch of Zapp, a payment system that that cuts the card networks out of the equation by directing purchases through bank accounts.

The check may not be in the mail. Today’s consumer uses an average of three different payment methods each month, from online to mobile to walk-in and yes, even the occasional check, according to Seventh Annual Billing Household Survey from Fiserv.

Planet Payment is working with Pay.On to leverage its international gateway products.

Seeking a uniform process for card-not-present transactions in the Single Euro Payments Area throughout Europe, the European Payments Council has created a blueprint for an interoperable card and terminal infrastructure.

Few would dispute that the U.S. ought to move to a faster payment system. But the hurdles to modernizing the infrastructure are daunting, said participants in a panel at this week's Retail Banking 2015 conference.

Digital money transfer company Xoom is working with the bank HBL to enable instant deposits in more Pakistani bank accounts.

The retail services market is flooded with Web-based developer tools that allow small businesses with little tech expertise to develop payment capabilities. But to companies like vCita, these toolkits are still too hard to use.

PayPal will be an attractive payments partner and is open to new alliances after completing its spinoff from parent eBay Inc., PayPal's incoming chief executive Dan Schulman told investors.

A South African payments company has established a consumer-facing subsidiary in London to enable its worldwide expansion over the next few years.

Square hopes to broaden its reach with its core micro-merchant market by offering technology to tap the $1.6 trillion e-commerce market.

CO-OP Financial Services has vastly expanded its real time person to person payments reach, adding a credit union-led alternative to the faster payment models being pursued by banks.

Visa has agreed to buy marketing and payments company TrialPay as part of the card network's broader strategy to improve merchant relationships.

Jack Henry & Associates and its ProfitStars division have released an online payments and donations platform designed for financial institutions and their business customers, the company announced Feb. 26.

As the number of Chinese students studying abroad increases, Geoswift is building out relationships with language schools and universities to mend the disjointed process of collecting tuition payments.

Consumers in North Dakota are far less likely to experience an incident of e-commerce fraud than those living in West Virginia. Knowing this informs Forter's monitoring of e-commerce fraud.

Home meal-prep delivery company PeachDish is working with Bitcoin processor BitPay to enable payments in the virtual currency.

A technology-savvy German bank's plan to open a branchless banking platform in the U.S. could eventually pave the way for more mainstream use of cryptocurrency platforms, such as Ripple and Bitcoin.

Pay.gov, the federal government's web portal for collecting payments to federal agencies, is now offering PayPal and Dwolla as payment options.

Fraudsters have taken to crowdfunding sites and other consumer-driven marketplaces in a new scheme designed to mask their use of stolen card data.

PayItSimple USA Inc., which enables installment payments for merchants and consumers, has integrated with online payment processor Stripe.