Retailers

Apple introduced its Passbook app — a wallet that stores other mobile wallets — alongside the iPhone 5 in September. Three months later, has Passbook revolutionized mobile payments? Or is it starving from lack of support?

Merchant Warehouse, a Boston-based ISO, has certified Combase USA as an integrated partner on the Merchant Warehouse Genius ITX Customer Engagement Platform.

Before the mobile card reader phenomenon took off, it was unlikely that a small-business owner could walk into a nearby store, pay $10 and walk out minutes later with the ability to accept card payments. Today, mobile payment devices are competing for shelf space with a growing number of major retailers.

Better ATM Services offers open-loop Visa prepaid cards through ATMs, but such one-size-fits-all cards don't appeal to all consumers. To appeal to shoppers who prefer closed-loop gift cards, Better ATM is testing cards that work at nine merchants.

Isis, mobile-pay venture formed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, has signed two deals that would allow consumers to use its Near Field Communication-based mobile wallet at vending machines that accept cashless payments.

Six or so interrelated events have aligned to help a U.S.-based independent sales organization expand into a global processor operating in 41 countries.

In an effort to make its style of alternative mobile and online payments more accessible, Dwolla launched several new features.

The mobile-payment provider Spindle has entered an agreement with the point of sale technology distributor Integrated Payments to offer its mobile commerce system to Integrated Payments' clients.

Adyen is launching a portable card reader that accepts both mag-stripe and EMV chip-card payments — the latter a feature that’s still rare in the U.S. even at hard-wired point of sale terminals.

It appears Near Field Communication payment technology is on the verge of coming into its own — at least in terms of its availability, though not necessarily in consumer adoption.

An online yellow pages company is offering independent sales organizations and sales agents a bundle of marketing tools to promote to merchants.

SCVNGR-created LevelUp announced today that it has 500,000 users, which it says is validation of its unconventional approach to point of sale payments.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council's participating organizations voted that third-party security assurance and best practices will be the two key areas for the PCI special interest groups to study in 2013.

The vast majority of small merchants are still storing unencrypted card data and most don't even know it, according to statistics compiled by a security vendor.

It’s time for the acquiring industry to think about security in broader terms, a compliance and breach reporting vendor says.

PushCoin aims to give parents a better handle on their kids' spending habits with a payment system rooted in the use of an assortment of items including mobile phones, wristbands and Near Field Communication stickers.

First Data and Fexco Merchant Services, an Irish-based transaction processor, have expanded First Data's GlobalChoice dynamic currency conversion into Canada.

Network Merchants Inc. has launched the iProcess Mobile Gateway Service, a standalone mobile service for merchants that want to process credit cards through mobile devices.

Global eTelecom Inc. and transmodus have integrated GETl’s check and ACH processing into the linked2pay payment gateway.

It's common to accuse the payments industry of living in the past, relying on aging systems like paper checks and magnetic-stripe cards. But the future holds some very intriguing changes — and in many cases, it’s already here.