Retailers

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a partner in the Merchant Customer Exchange mobile payments initiative, weighed in on two other payment technologies today: Stripe and PayPal.

First Data is having a busy week. On Sunday it announced a new CEO, who started the job Monday. And today, it had a tough earnings call where the company admitted it could do more to leverage its considerable data to expand the services it sells to clients.

Discover has signed contracts with 50 merchant acquirers to enable PayPal's in-store payment system to pass 2 million merchant locations by the end of 2013, the card brand said.

Merchants have a vastly different receptiveness and understanding of the U.S. conversion to EMV-chip payment cards, and VeriFone is taking a diverse approach to appealing to them all.

Nintendo built a Near Field Communication chip into the tablet-like controller of the Wii U game console it launched late last year, and the video-game giant says it is now considering using that chip for payments.

Only a couple of hours into his new job as First Data's CEO, Frank Bisignano was already plotting a strategy to deal with the historic impact of mobile technology on the payments industry.

Square Inc., the payments startup founded by Twitter Inc. Chairman Jack Dorsey, is adding features to target the restaurant industry as it moves beyond individual merchants such as dog walkers and taxi drivers.

Snapfinger Inc. designed its mobile payment app for its restaurant clients to better gather data on their guests.

Many companies in the payments industry have strong, influential women as top executives. These women rarely had a clear path ahead of them when they started out.

Nacha's Janet Estep has just finished one of the biggest weeks of the year for the association—one that included heavy advocacy for automated clearing house payments at Nacha's Payments 2013 conference.

As mobile payments companies seek a receptive audience, many are turning their attention to restaurants. And the food industry, in turn, is increasingly receptive to putting mobile payments on their menu.

Rewarder's a startup that works in reverse of most online markets — it facilitates payments for buyers who are willing to pay for a unique expertise.

SumUp, a London-based company that allows merchants to accept card payments on their smartphones, will enable iPad acceptance through a partnership with Revel Systems.

Vindicia, a subscription billing service, is teaming with U.K.-based processor SmartDebit to provide "customer-not-present" payment technology.

Francoise Brougher, a former Google and Charles Schwab executive, is Square's new business lead.

Payvia Inc.'s newest clients — Skype, OnCam and Bright — demonstrate a growing appetite for charging payments to consumers' phone bills.

People — and payment companies — are starting to take Bitcoin seriously.The decentralized virtual currency is overcoming its stigma as a fringe currency for illegal transactions and is stirring up consumer scrutiny of the practices of large payment providers. The payments industry is changing rapidly, but today the movement isn't about payments — it's about data.

WorldPay, which provides electronic payment processing, has contracted to bring the NFC and EMV capabilities of VeriFone's countertop payment products to merchants.

Chirpify, which lets people initiate payments over social media, has secured another $2 million in funding and now counts rappers Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg as clients.