POS and Retail

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

The vast majority of companies that collect customer payment information over the phone rely on interactive voice response (IVR) technology to streamline the process and reduce live agent staffing requirements.

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.

It may take years for most small merchants to accept EMV-chip cards in the U.S., but the country's ultimate goal of adopting the secure payment technology is coming together faster than what was seen in other EMV markets.

There is a lot of confusion in the retail industry around payments and Point-of-Sale (POS).

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 U.K. is rapidly becoming a target for payment crime, with malware on the rise and the country poised for fraud spikes as crooks abandon EMV-protected terminals to target the more vulnerable e-commerce channel.

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.

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

The launch of the U.S.'s first regulated bitcoin exchange gives an already curious merchant base more of a reason to jump into virtual currency.

The processor Total System Services Inc. has entered into an agreement with terminal maker Ingenico to support a wide range of payment types, including magnetic stripe, EMV, Near Field Communication and Apple Pay.

Mergers and acquisitions among payments companies rose 44% in 2014 compared to the year before.

New, experimental consumer marketing programs have played a significant role in the way technology has upended the payment business in recent years. And Visa is looking to get in on the action.

Online money transfer service WorldRemit has signed a partnership with a telco that serves Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enable its customers to send money to mobile wallet users in those regions.

Ingenico Group, a French maker of payment terminals, has completed its acquisition of Roam.

Merchant acquirers can learn a lot from their new competitors about how to stand out in a crowd where everybody appears to be the same.

Mobile payments provider Spindle signed an agreement with Transaction Data USA, a payments industry consulting firm, to expand the sale of its products to merchants.

Retailers are adopting many innovations to counter the lure of online shopping, which is becoming more of a threat to brick-and-mortar stores as e-commerce spreads to a growing number of Internet-connected devices.

PayPal is revamping its lineup of mobile point of sale offerings, expanding developer tools and adding EMV in the U.S. But its new support for Microsoft devices may have the most impact as it pursues merchants that can already get payment capabilities elsewhere.