Payments

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.

French tech consultancy FIME is partnering with cybersecurity provider Thales e-Security to encourage use of Host Card Emulation technology for contactless mobile payments.

Boku has released a new, cross-platform carrier billing payment technology that is designed to mimic a credit card payment.

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.

Apple Pay has begun its foray into airlines, deploying about 3,500 iPad minis that can accept mobile payments, but it is making a slow approach to the industry.

Samsung's purchase of LoopPay preps the company for mobile payments move, but the initiative will face challenges because of the initial dominance of magstripe technology and other factors.

Google plans to release a new set of Android-based payment developer tools at its I/O conference in May, according to a report by the tech news site Ars Technica.

Barclays is updating its Pingit person-to-person payment app to enable it to use Twitter usernames to identify recipients.

PreCash Inc. has added Visa and MasterCard acceptance to its Evolve Money mobile bill-pay app.

Brazil's embrace of digital commerce is providing juice for Santander's university smart-card program, which is growing by leaps and bounds as it lays the groundwork for the mobile channel.

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.

Visa Europe will introduce tokenization part of a new mobile payment service it plans to launch in April.

MasterCard has deployed Host Card Emulation-based mobile wallets in more than 15 countries.

Host Card Emulation, the technology that allows contactless mobile payments without access to a phone's secure element, could bust the barrier that still lingers between mobile payments and loyalty.

It's easy for banks to spin their wheels on local reinvestment, financial education and other efforts to help underserved communities. To make outreach programs successful, bank executives need to carefully vet nonprofit and other partners, listen to their employees on the front lines and reflect on their own reasons for getting into banking.

Google is buying some technology and intellectual property from the rival Android-based mobile wallet Softcard, giving Google a chance to finally put to bed several business problems that have plagued the company since it launched its mobile wallet in 2011.

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

Apple Pay's contactless payment model may be straightforward and simple, but it's not the only way to move funds without cards and cash. Many companies are coming up with alternatives that work from phones, smartwatches and other devices.

There are some fairly basic, decisive steps banks could take to educate people outside the financial mainstream, and it would make banking more profitable, says John Bryant, the chairman and CEO of the nonprofit Operation Hope.

MasterCard is aggressively pursuing emerging markets, and in early February opened a technology hub in Pune, India to compete with the entrenched domestic payment networks.