A new push by President Obama to tighten cybersecurity at credit unions, banks and other businesses could help light a fire under some firms that have historically been slower to react in the wake of a data breach and help financial institutions dealing with a tangle of confusing state laws.

The telco-led mobile wallet venture Softcard has laid off 60 employees and is consolidating its offices, a sign that the company's staffing may have been oversized compared to its opportunities in the market.

Capital One acquired Level Money, a startup with a budgeting app for consumers, on Monday. Level Money has approximately 700,000 users and claims to have helped users manage a total of $12 billion during its brief existence.

PayPal is enabling monthly installment for larger purchases and offering business consulting, a move that will allow the company to handle larger transactions and extend its merchant services.

The San Jose-based payment terminal maker Verifone launched a new mobile operating system and is separately working with Samsung on new mobile point of sale projects.

The former Eagle Scout accused of running the $1.2 billion online drug bazaar "Silk Road" may face life in prison if convicted in a trial where jurors will hear allegations he tried to arrange the murders of six people.

Global payment solutions provider Elavon has partnered with Verizon to bring mobile point of sale products to Verizon's small-business customers.

Tritium Partners has acquired a majority stake in Giact Systems LLC, an electric payments service.

Stage Stores, a department store chain based in in Houston, has beefed up its payment security with technology from Chase Paymentech and Ingenico.

Customers affected by cyberattacks frequently direct their wrath at financial institutions, whether or not a bank is responsible for the breach. Therefore banks need to have a strategic communications strategy in place.

On the heels of the recent barrage of payment card theft, banks are scrambling to roll out EMV based solutions, but is it enough?

French payment companies are stepping up the use technology that can spot certain types of card fraud that are not prevented by EMV-chip security.

Geolocation can play to credit unions' strengths as supporters of local businesses. But small institutions typically lack the resources to create and test this technology and their core platform providers have yet to offer such services.

The extended leave of Starbucks' chief operating officer, Troy Alstead, could indicate that last year's creation of the COO post has succeeded in furthering the coffee chain's mobile payments initiatives.

Apple Pay will expand to Canada this year, according to a report by 9to5Mac, a news site that follows Apple's activities.

Nine Polish banks are pushing ahead with the country's mobile payment efforts, promising to launch a Visa-backed, cloud-based contactless service early this year.

One of the clearest things that sets Apple Pay apart from other mobile wallets is its incorporation of Touch ID fingerprint recognition. Now that Apple has opened up Touch ID to outside developers, the fingerprint tech is spreading throughout — and in some cases beyond — Apple's ecosystem.

Until last April, the young adviser now at the center of Morgan Stanley's massive client data breach was a sales assistant who spent the majority of his career under the tutelage of one the firm's wealth management teams.

Kofax, a financial technology company in Irvine, Calif., on Thursday released a product that allows lenders to capture and process electronic signatures.

Starbucks Corp. Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead will go on an extended unpaid hiatus, leaving the world’s largest coffee-shop chain without a No. 2 to Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz.