Retailers

Ecobank Transnational Inc. and MasterCard have agreed to promote electronic payments throughout Central and West Africa, accelerating use of payment cards for consumers and mobile card readers for merchants.

First Data likens its new Clover Mini payment terminal to Apple's product line: it's a device made to fill a niche that everyone else thought was already being served.

After several years of dormancy, Apple resurrected Near Field Communications (NFC). However, it remains to be seen if NFC will ultimately prosper and become the kind of ubiquitous payment technology that today is unique to payment cards.

Square Inc. will eventually be a publicly traded company and could conduct an initial public offering this year if it wanted to, its former chief operating officer said.

Imagine you work for a grocery store where every 18 out of 100 shoppers must be turned away from the register when they arrive with a loaded grocery cart. This would obviously aggravate a lot of shoppers, which is why it’s ridiculous that e-commerce companies do this every day – usually without realizing it.

Consumers in the Asia-Pacific region no longer view the MasterPass wallet as an option only for big-ticket purchases.

Jack Dorsey is following in the footsteps of his Silicon Valley idol – Steve Jobs.

Before Target, there was TJX, the major 2007 breach that impacted about 45 million credit cards. The crime and its prevention were basic, and provide a lesson for today's retailers that are battling a new wave of data theft.

Apple is doing a lot more with its mobile wallet, with a focus on making Apple Pay a more palatable option for retailers. The company is also making moves to beef up the features visible to consumers and expand to new regions.

Jack Dorsey will be doing double duty soon. The 38-year-old Missouri-native will be serving as the interim CEO of Twitter, while also continuing to serve as the CEO of Square Inc.

Merchants have an appetite for mobile technology, but they don't always know how to feed their hunger, according to PayPal's Brad Brodigan.

Nearly 80% of consumers making payments to doctors or hospitals would prefer to do so through a one-click method on their health-plan provider's website, according to data from health care payments provider InstaMed.

Wirecard AG has added a link to Google's search engine marketing service to its Checkout Portal.

Ingenico Group has provided its EMV-enabled terminals and software to the retailer Batteries Plus Bulbs, in preparation for the October deadline for EMV-chip card adoption.

In the race to deploy digital payments technology, small businesses have an opportunity to level the playing field with larger companies and better meet the demands of today’s consumers.

Square's partnership with Apple to enable small merchants to accept Apple Pay is just one blip in Apple's overall strategy, but for Square it's a fundamental rethinking of its approach to its audience.

Merchants face a confusing onslaught of terminal updates, encryption, tokenization and EMV, placing organizations like the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) in the role of trying to make sense of the changes.

We already know that American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa are on board with Android Pay. MasterCard has mooted its launch date to be ‘in the coming months.' So, the global support network is in place, but broader questions remain: Will it take on Apple Pay? How will it compare, or even compete, with Samsung’s offering?

Apple Pay's launch was seen as so bank-focused that some retailers griped or outright rebelled against the Apple mobile wallet. But today, Apple made a major peace offering to the merchant community — and it's working with Square to make that happen.

Amazon.com Inc. built a Web- retailing empire by persuading consumers to pay for books, electronics and other merchandise online. Now it's targeting the next generation of shoppers.