Payment processing

2014 was a big year for payments. Disruption came from within the financial services industry and from outsiders like Apple and Walmart. Mainstream payment companies had to respond to these new competitors as well as adapt to fresh attention from regulators and fraudsters.

In its first year of heavy involvement in testing and certifying payment security technology, scientists at Underwriters Laboratories have determined that tokenization should be a significant piece of a strong security "triangle."

For MasterCard's Mung Ki Woo, the future of payments is an app that unlocks new consumer habits by literally unlocking their doors.

Moneris Solutions, Inc. and Syrasoft Self Storage Software will partner on two new integrated payment processing options for the self-storage industry.

Staples Inc., the largest U.S. office-supply retailer, said 1.16 million payment cards may have been affected in a series of data breaches that occurred from July into September.

Retail stores have spent years fighting competition from the Internet, and Verifone plans to prove that it's a fight the brick-and-mortar side can win.

LevelUp, a mobile payments provider known for its playful office culture — and a CEO who prefers to be called a chief ninja — may need to mature as its competition gets serious.

Card issuing and acquiring software provider OpenWay is partnering with People's Bank of Kazakhstan to deliver the first chip-based UnionPay cards in Central Asia.

Paytronix Systems, a consumer rewards company, has signed an agreement with the payment technology company NCR Corp. to provide restaurant loyalty programs.

NCR's Silver point of sale system has integrated SCVNGR's LevelUp mobile wallet and customer loyalty app.

The mobile point of sale provider ShopKeep is releasing hardware that is compatible with Apple Pay's Near Field Communication payment system and EMV-chip cards.

After spending 2014 digging out of fiscal slump, Verifone is setting up for an aggressive product rollout in the year ahead as it recovery shifts into high gear.

The e-commerce provider Spindle has partnered with the payment processor TekTango to provide point of sale hardware with bundled payment processing services.

While PayPal has not taken a firm position on whether it sees Apple's foray into payments as a competitive threat or potential partner, Apple's addition of PayPal as an option for its online stores suggests an openness to cooperate on basic functions.

The tablet-based point of sale market is becoming crowded, pressuring providers to get creative to stand out.

Dwolla is expanding its direct bank transfer services to allow its account holders to send payments to a recipient's e-mail address for automatic routing to a bank account.

In a breach incident that illustrates how long a company can do business without knowing fraudsters are potentially stealing its card data, Charge Anywhere LLC informed its merchants it has found and shut down malware that initially entered its network five years ago.

Worldpay, a payments processing and technology company based in London, plans to move its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta.

MasterCard is investing in and partnering with card technology company Dynamics to embed greater function into U.S. payment cards, a mission that has sputtered in past years.

Wearable computing is very much a nascent market, but by using flexible programming methods PNC hopes to be ready to deploy payments apps when the technology takes off.