Payments

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

Samsung's plan to acquire LoopPay gives the mobile phone maker a technology that can reach more merchants faster than Near Field Communication (NFC), the technology used by Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

Mobile banking technology company Monitise is by all appearances for sale, though it may have to get creative to find a buyer.

Vladimir Drinkman, a Muscovite charged in the biggest data-breach prosecution in U.S. history, pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he conspired to steal 160 million credit card numbers.

Decisions about when and how to implement EMV technology in credit and debit cards are difficult. Many banks have decided to slowly phase it in, despite the fact the delay will open them up to greater potential liability.

Mobile payment company iZettle is countering the idea that EMV compliance increases merchant expense by offering a free version of its mobile chip-and-PIN card reader.

A joint venture formed by Norway's three dominant mobile phone carriers is testing a new, rebranded version of its mobile wallet, designed to lower the barriers merchants and consumers face when first using a mobile phone for payments.

Branch closings draw big headlines, but several large banks are entering new markets — or bulking up in underrepresented cities — by adding branches and hiring lenders. Bank of America, for instance, is planning a retail push in Denver and Minneapolis.

Apple isn't the only device maker with its own mobile wallet. Though Samsung hasn't launched anything like Apple Pay, every year Samsung has added new technology to its smartphones and wearables to piece together the elements of a true mobile wallet.

Starbucks' decision to support Apple Pay within the coffee chain's mobile payment app seems like a natural alliance of two major forces in mobile payments, but it raises a significant question: Why not do the same with Square, with which Starbucks has much deeper ties?

The New York Credit Union Association (NYCUA) announced that it has signed a letter of intent to sell its card services subsidiary Covera Solutions Inc., to CO-OP Financial Services.

Apple is well known for its "reality distortion field," a term applied to products that seem to appeal more because of Apple's aura of coolness than for the actual features of the product. But Apple Pay is not a case of Apple suddenly making mobile payments cool — consumers were already on board with the technology, even if they didn't know what to call it.

The Australian market has used EMV-chip cards for more than a decade, necessitating a very different approach to the mobile point of sale.

American Express will certainly suffer when its 16-year cobranding deal with Costco ends in 2016, but its executives will spend the next year building up the card brand's digital payment products to create enough opportunities to ease the company's short-term pain and guarantee its long-term health.

With the EMV deadline looming ever closer — now fewer than eight months away — card issuers need to start ramping up consumer education efforts.

American Express, the biggest U.S. credit-card issuer by customer purchases, said its co-brand and merchant agreements with Costco Wholesale in U.S. stores will end next year.

American Express, the biggest U.S. credit-card issuer by customer purchases, said its co-brand and merchant agreements with Costco Wholesale in U.S. stores will end next year.

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

PayPal and Apple are well positioned as the mobile wallet race shifts from pure payments to broader services such as marketing and aggregation, according to Forrester Research.

Mobile banking apps that allow consumers to proactively lock their debit cards, or limit their cards' use to specific scenarios, could shift the way banks manage fraud and even enable them to place some of the liability on the consumer.