Point-of-sale

Google Wallet has undergone several major revisions since it launched and while the issues solved with its latest iteration were among its biggest hurdles, it's still too soon to declare a winner in the mobile wallet race.

If retail stores seemed a little less crowded over the holiday weekend, tablets or smartphones are likely to blame, as the volume of e-commerce payments made via mobile devices surged during what some are now calling the "Cyber Five" shopping days — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

Fraud prevention provider ValidSoft has joined the Fast Identity Online Alliance to help create standards for online authentication, the company announced Dec. 3.

NCR has been working to become a "hardware-enabled, software-driven business" for eight years. With its purchase of online and mobile banking vendor Digital Insight and transaction switching and fraud detection software company Alaric Systems, it's taken a big step forward.

NCR Corp. has agreed to purchase Menlo, Calif.-based Digital Insight Corp. for $1.65 billion. Separately, NCR also completed a purchase of Alaric Systems in London for $84 million.

Because of the changes that mobile will bring to the point of sale, the payments industry can expect to see acquisitions, consolidations and investments in that market over the next six to 12 months.

While nearly two thirds, or 61%, of U.S. online consumers have heard of a digital wallet, only 11% actually use one, an indicator that wallet providers still face challenges reaching consumers, according to Forrester Research.

MasterCard worked with Intel and Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors to establish a digital service that allows consumers to initiate online transactions by tapping their MasterPass card or Near Field Communication-enabled smartphone against a built-in NFC reader.

A mobile wallet project in Hungary is taking the leap from testing to market rollout after receiving positive feedback from initial users.

With a new CEO and an infusion of private equity funding, Cynergy Data plans to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

MasterCard Inc. and PayPal have positioned themselves as companies with “the best current opportunities in the payment space,” according to Morningstar Financial Services.

Mobile point of sale terminals are projected to reach 46% market penetration by 2017, up from the 17% share of the point of sale terminal market that mobile systems held in 2012, according to a whitepaper by Mobey Forum.

Vodafone Group marked the launch of its European mobile wallet initiative in Spain, revealing plans to expand it into Germany next month and other parts of Europe early next year.

Spire Payments’ point-of-sale terminals will be available to merchants in Australia through a partnership with independent sales organization Keycorp Services Ltd.

Brooklyn is teeming with New York natives and tourists alike, and the borough's merchants sometimes struggle to keep up with the activity. Several are using mobile point of sale systems from companies like ShopKeep to cut through the chaos.

Airtag figures it has landed its mobile payment system in the right places at the right time, concentrating on the fast-food and grocery markets.

The wireless carriers' Isis mobile wallet venture is launching a new program to build merchant support for its technology.

PayPal and MyCheck are going to New York's theater district to set the stage for mobile payments. The companies are targeting restaurants with MyCheck’s pay-at-the-table technology.

European point of sale technology provider Spire will be the sole supplier of mobile chip and PIN payment devices for Smart TPE, Credit Agricole's mobile point of sale initiative in France.

Square has updated the design of its Square Register app in an attempt to improve user navigation and provide a consistent experience across different operating systems such as Google's Android and Apple's iOS 7.