Retailers

Heartland Payment Systems has purchased the mobile point of sale vendor Leaf to improve its capabilities for small businesses.

Square, which has been scrambling to add fee-based services to pad the revenue it gets from mobile payments, faces a formidable new challenge in Amazon's launch of a rival mobile card reader.

Amazon.com Inc. has launched a Square-like mobile card reader called Amazon Local Register, charging early adopters just 1.75% per swipe until the end of 2015.

Square recently ended a plastic card project out of concerns it would cause friction with the payment company's financial partners, according to Fast Company.

Square Appointments, the company's latest fee-based product, is the first in its lineup that can be used by merchants who do not also use Square to accept payments.

Square is the latest technology company to launch a "bug bounty" program, which rewards volunteer hackers for finding security flaws and bringing them to Square's attention.

It's hard to design a Disney's "Frozen" cake with a cash register, but it works like magic with a tablet, according to Dallas-area Society Bakery.

Mobile card readers like Square and PayPal Here must inevitably offer an EMV-chip card option to U.S. merchants, but how soon is too soon? And what are the consequences of arriving too late?

Global Payments' integrated solutions division has released CustomerBuilder, a new application designed to enable users to create, distribute and track digital card offers.

Comerica has hired payments processor Vantiv as the financial institution continues a legal battle stemming from a discontinued joint venture with Global Payments, which a judge says has taken a "hostile attitude" toward the bank.

When Starbucks Corp came to market in January 2011 with its mobile payments app, there had yet to be a retailer or foodservice operator that had gained much traction with the newfangled idea of a consumer using a mobile phone to make an in-store purchase.

Square Inc. has purchased food delivery company, Caviar, in a move to add non-payment features to its mobile payment and ordering system.

Roam, a Boston-based unit of Ingenico, has begun offering its mobile payment services on Leapfactor, a business software platform.

Banks and payment service providers face increasing competition today in onboarding new merchants. For many of them, the merchant onboarding process is very time-consuming, inflexible and costly.

First Data Corp. has agreed to buy Gyft Inc., which sells digital gift cards, in a move to advance the Atlanta-based processor's mobile payment offerings.

Heartland Payment Systems plans to bolster its existing services to college campuses by acquiring TouchNet Information Systems Inc. for $375 million.

Square plans to offer a version of its mobile card reader that can read EMV-chip cards, but the added security may come at a cost.

The Justice Department's legal case against American Express will not benefit consumers and will weaken competition, said Jeff Campbell, executive vice president and CFO of American Express.

Amazon.com, which just launched its own smartphone, may be nearing the launch of a mobile card reader that would work like Square's device, according to reports. Such a move would complement the company's many recent payment initiatives.

Zing is releasing an iPad app that leverages Web hosted technology to access a large selection of business functions through the point of sale.