Payment processing

Loomis Armored U.S. is now an armored courier service provider for Fifth Third Bank's currency processing.

Billhighway, a 13-year-old Troy, Mich.-based firm that offers accounting, cash management and payment processing to nonprofit firms, plans to join the fray with a mobile payment option of its own.

ShopKeep POS, a small independent sales organization, is capturing the attention of companies big and small. Earlier this month, it worked with PayPal to test a mobile-payment system, and today it announced plans with Dwolla and SCVNGR's LevelUp.

The traditional payment terminal's future took another hit this week with ShopKeep POS announcing plans to integrate Dwolla and LevelUp mobile payments into its iPad-based checkout system.

BitPay, an Orlando-based company that helps online merchants accept the digital currency, says more than 1,000 merchants have signed up for its service in the past year.

Online Resources Corp. opened an office in the metro Atlanta area this year to attract the sort of payments-industry talent it says is rarer in Chantilly, Va., where it is based.

Only Apple knows for sure, but there are signs that new iPhone, which many expect Apple to announce at a press event Sept. 12, could revolutionize payments by putting an Apple mobile wallet into consumers' hands.

A Walmart store or CVS Pharmacy may not be the first places that come to mind to make rent payments, but those locations and thousands of others are now part of the mix for paying rent with cash through WilliamPaid.com, a Chicago-based online rental payment website.

Despite the decisions by some of the leading mobile-payment providers to work within the existing infrastructure, investors are concerned that legacy players' operations soon might become obsolete. And VeriFone is serving as their poster child.

Google will no longer support the Google-branded virtual prepaid card built into Google Wallet as of Oct. 17.

Banks and credit unions that have watched from the sidelines as the likes of Square, PayPal and Intuit built a mobile-payments market from scratch now have their own product to offer — a product merchants can't get off a retail-store shelf or from an independent sales organization.

Discover is pushing aggressively to be at the heart of many mobile-payments initiatives. It's doing a lot that its rivals are not — but there are a few ways it might lose ground.

As ShopKeep POS reviews the results of its recent mobile-wallet test with PayPal, it is rolling out a new iPhone app for merchants that use its tablet-based register system.

As technology evolves, Square is proving its savvy by making the most of its social-media expertise. It uses Twitter not just as a highlight of CEO Jack Dorsey's resume (Dorsey co-founded the micro-blogging company) but as an effective channel for immediate sales.

Soon the question every clerk asks at checkout may not be, 'paper or plastic,' but instead, 'mobile bar code or NFC?'

VeriFone's stock price tumbled after the maker of payment terminals reported third-quarter sales that fell short of analysts' estimates, citing unfavorable currency swings, competition in Europe and a fire in Brazil.

Ingenico continues to pursue U.S. market share to capitalize on the breakup of rival payment-terminal maker Hypercom last year, and wireless terminals are a key part of that strategy.

Online marketplace Etsy is putting more marketing muscle behind its PayPal alternative, Direct Checkout, as it waives processing fees this month and makes Direct Checkout a requirement for accepting its virtual gift cards, which launch next month.

The Dan Beard Council of the Boy Scouts of America has begun using a mobile card reader from VeriFone in its Annual Popcorn Sale.

Square has stolen the spotlight — after convincing Starbucks to switch to Square for processing, the mobile-payments vendor gave other merchants the option to accept cards for a flat $275 monthly fee. How can a rival mobile-pay provider compete?