Point-of-sale

Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay and PayPal are just a few of the solutions which financial technology commentators predict will bring about the downfall of cash and the plastic card.

The largest franchisee of the Sonic fast-food chain has rolled out Mobivity Holdings Corp.'s SmartReceipt technology at various locations with plans for additional distribution.

Merchants' Choice Payment Solutions and Powa Technologies have teamed up to launch an integrated tablet-based point of sale system in a bid to meet demand for tablet-based payments.

American retailers have struggled with mobile payments, largely because they try to reinvent the entire buying process instead of evolving what's already there. Starbucks' success is rooted in its willingness to take the easiest route time and again, an approach that is clear in how it chose to implement Apple Pay.

Bluefin Payment Systems, a technology vendor based in Georgia, will provide mobile point-to-point encryption technology to Infinite Peripherals, a point of sale system provider.

With Apple Pay gaining momentum, Google Inc. reportedly is planning to relaunch a new version of its wallet in late May at the Google I/O, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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.

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

Encryption has become a political hot potato for the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council as it compiles a list of validated encryption vendors and services — and leaves off some companies that say they deserve to be recognized as secure.

Samsung is widely reported to be adding mobile-payment technology from LoopPay to its next Galaxy smartphone. Such an approach would be vastly different from that of Apple, PayPal or MCX's CurrentC — and it would address a key issue with LoopPay's own business model.

U.S. gas stations can wait until October 2017 to begin accepting EMV-chip cards or face the consequence of an increase in fraud liability, but there's already concern that the work at gas pumps could stall.

Thirty-four percent of merchants interviewed late last year for an Aite Group research report on EMV readiness had never heard of the U.S. migration to EMV-chip payment cards, despite the fast-approaching October 2015 deadline set by the card networks.

CardFlight has updated its SwipeSimple mobile point of sale device, which allows merchants to take payments and manage their business from smartphones and tablets.

Mobile wallets are typically designed to be most useful at the point of sale. Israeli location-based technology vendor WiseSec sees an opportunity to extend a mobile app's utility throughout the store by using beacons that can sense how far away a shopper is.

Mobile payments provider Spindle will provide aggregation technology to EggZack to resell to mobile point of sale and e-commerce merchants.

There have been many attempts in recent years to convince issuers and consumers to store multiple payment accounts in a single high-tech card, typically with an emphasis on consumer choice. A new approach uses the same technology but packs in data analytics to take some of that choice out of consumers' hands.

PayPal is starting the year without its vice president and general manager of retail and prepaid of the past four years.

The rapid pace of mobile point of sale technology and advanced merchant services is pressuring traditional terminal makers to ensure that their devices are not only still relevant, but capable of evolution.

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