Retailers

Amazon.com is a savvy and influential company in the e-commerce world, but its efforts in payments have been less consistent. It has significantly changed the way people redeem rewards and shop on third-party sites, but it has proven less successful in person-to-person payments and the mobile point of sale.

CardFlight has updated its SwipeSimple mobile point of sale device, which allows merchants to take payments and manage their business from smartphones and tablets.

Mobile wallets are typically designed to be most useful at the point of sale. Israeli location-based technology vendor WiseSec sees an opportunity to extend a mobile app's utility throughout the store by using beacons that can sense how far away a shopper is.

First Data is planning to launch a new suite of payment processing software in partnership with Capgemini, a financial consulting and outsourcing firm based in Paris.

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.