Payments

During World War II, Lockheed Martin created a program called Skunk Works, which used specialized teams of developers for lightning-fast brainstorming to accelerate the research and development of new planes. That is how a lot of payments innovation is getting done today.

Wal-Mart is both a powerhouse in retail and a pioneer in financial services. The company has championed numerous initiatives in prepaid and mobile payments, and it has also been quick to push back on technologies it does not like.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s deal to distribute Green Dot Corp.'s mobile checking account, GoBank, signals a fundamental change in how both companies approach their audience.

Payments processor Stripe will partner with Facebook to provide technology behind the social network's "buy" button, according to a report in ReCode.

PayPal is going slow when it comes to Bitcoin, limiting its current focus to emerging channels and relying on partnerships with virtual-currency processors in North America.

Not all transactions have the same need for speed, so the Federal Reserve Banks' financial services unit will start with a narrow focus as it evaluates the development of a faster payments infrastructure in the U.S.

Ingenico Group is leveraging its experience in EMV-chip terminal upgrades and new momentum from Apple Pay to better position itself for the U.S. conversion to smart-card technology.

Spire Payments will supply Indian Overseas Bank with more than 7,500 mobile point of sale devices in its mPOS deployment in the Chennai region of India.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s deal to distribute Green Dot Corp.'s mobile checking account, GoBank, signals a fundamental change in how both companies approach their audience.

Visa Inc. is planning to hire 2,000 employees to strengthen its technology strategy.

Fifty-two percent of millennial respondents in a Zogby Analytics survey sponsored by Mitek Systems, a mobile imaging tech provider, perceive native apps as a safer solution than mobile websites for purchasing and banking.

Revel Systems' deal with the New Orleans-based Smoothie King franchise will be the largest deployment to date of its iPad point of sale software.

Klarna will target a range of merchants in the U.S., but will focus on e-commerce merchants that ship tangible goods. Its buy-now-pay-later model would, in most cases, result in the consumer paying for the item after receiving it in the mail.

MasterCard has launched Pay with Rewards, a mobile app that allows MasterCard credit card holders to use their reward points for purchases by swiping their card at the point of sale.

PayPal's making moves to respond to the maturation of virtual currencies, entering into agreements with Bitcoin payment processors BitPay, Coinbase and GoGoin.

MyECheck has established the required relationships to proceed with the launch of its mobile payment apps early next year, a delay from its originally planned mid-2014 launch date.

The payments industry has changed dramatically over the past year, and so has the mindset of those in the industry. The focus is shifting from mobile payments and Bitcoin to fraud mitigation and security.

Business-to-business payments provider Traxpay Inc. will expand its reach by routing B2B transactions across MasterCard Inc. rails.

Merchants using Revel Systems' iPad point-of-sale software will now have the option to incorporate Web ordering into the system, and will also be able to accept Apple Pay when Apple's mobile wallet launches next month.

CO-OP Financial Services is developing a mobile app that will give consumers the ability to activate and deactivate card capabilities on the fly.