Payments

PayEase, a merchant acquiring firm based in China, has begun offering online payment services in Taiwan through a partnership with the e-commerce company OnePaid.

Xoom, a digital payments company based in San Francisco, has begun offering money transfers to China.

As Starbucks has proven for years, few retail interactions are more tailor-made for mobile payment than coffee sales. But when U.K.-based grocery chain Marks & Spencer launched its own coffee loyalty app in a 58-store trial in London, it chose to keep its menu much simpler.

By linking mobile payments with money transfers, Western Union created a new use for Apple's mobile wallet. But it must still rigidly conform to the basic requirements of an Apple Pay transaction — without a bank account, there is no payment.

While Visa and MasterCard aren't yet applying the same level of pressure for tokenization security as they are for EMV-chip cards, the card networks' CEOs are clear that this technology is their new expectation for e-commerce.

Apple's mobile wallet has been out for just four months, and already it has shaken up the way mobile payments operate at the point of sale. It has faced pushback from some merchants and banks, but it has also popularized new forms of security and other payment technology.

While Visa and MasterCard aren't yet applying the same level of pressure for tokenization security as they are for EMV-chip cards, the card networks' CEOs are clear that this technology is their new expectation for e-commerce.

The move likely foreshadows the market impact of proposed regulations requiring prepaid card issuers to assess consumers' ability to repay before extending credit.

MyECheck has reached an agreement to buy the electronic payment software platform developer Seergate.

Several wallet apps already let restaurant patrons order ahead for takeout and/or pay without waiting for a waiter. A Ukrainian company called Settle takes this concept a step further by also allowing customers to skip the wait for a table.

Google reports a dramatic increase in mobile shopping, suggesting the channel is now mainstream for consumers.

The telco-backed mobile wallet Softcard is at a significant crossroads. Though it once saw the debut of Apple Pay as an opportunity, Apple may actually be edging its rivals out of the market, and Softcard's next move will decide not only its own fate but also the strategies of the banks and merchants that could benefit from its technology.

Visa Europe Ltd.'s full-year profit increased 30% on sharp growth of Internet payments across the continent.

The introduction of Apple Pay has also thrust Near Field Communication-based contactless payment technology out of the wings and into the spotlight.

Banks partnering with prepaid card providers face the potential of higher deposit insurance fees and other ramifications from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. classifying accounts as "brokered."

Mangopay, a white-label payment solution provider for marketplaces, has opened an office at Level 39, London's largest technology accelerator.

Apple Pay's Touch ID is the exception, not the rule. Biometric security typically requires some type of add-on hardware, a model that has struggled to get much adoption over the years.

A lot of companies are lining up to provide payment pages for e-commerce merchants, and BlueSnap is working to set its own offering apart by adding design options for checkout.

Among the many obstacles for mobile payments, the most daunting is getting shoppers to change behavior. The fact is that plastic cards have worked quite well for a very long time and consumers are quite used to them. To get consumers to change decades-old habits is far from easy.

E-commerce retailers generally target the 80 million millennial shoppers because they are more likely to buy things online and spend more money online than other demographics.