Boku has signed direct carrier billing agreements with the leading telcos in India.

As the payments industry attempts to standardize the process of using a token to replace sensitive data, the end result may still involve several different approaches.

If Capital One can lure a highly regarded expert like Dan Makoski from Google to head up the bank's payment technology development, it stands to reason other banks would do the same. Maybe. But it won't be easy, experts say.

Historically, only lenders have had unlimited access to consumers' complete credit files, while consumers are generally restricted to obtaining just one free credit report a year from major credit bureaus. Credit Karma is making that data even more accessible so that consumers can better understand how lenders evaluate their creditworthiness.

MasterCard's digital wallet is currently live in 10 markets and the company has plans to add four more countries this year in a push to strengthen the card network's capabilities in an increasingly digital world.

Apple has big plans for payments, but it's not outspoken about what they are. However, more of its behind-the-scenes efforts are starting to leak; these six reports came in just the past two months.

SCVNGR's LevelUp is launching a gift card program to allow merchants to sell physical cards in-store and digital cards through the company's mobile wallet app.

Target Corp., struggling to fix a botched expansion in Canada and undo the lingering damage of a holiday hacker attack, hired former PepsiCo Inc. executive Brian Cornell as chief executive officer.

Six-year-old Poppy Blacow and her father Rik watched a distant stage where Black Sabbath, the English rock band led by infamous lyricist Ozzy Osbourne, was playing. They wanted to get closer seats, but upgrading their tickets was a decidedly "classic rock" experience in need of a "modern rock" upgrade.

Hilton's updated mobile app, which lets guests use their phones as room keys, has almost nothing to do with payments. But it may be the catalyst the payments industry has long needed to get consumers to warm to mobile wallets.

Fiserv Inc. is promoting the real-time version Popmoney person-to-person payment service as a companion to its online bill payment offering.

WEX Inc. is working to finalize several key acquisitions to bring the corporate payments provider into new markets.

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.

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.

Facebook Inc. is ending a service that lets friends send digital gift cards to each other, as the social-networking service revamps how users can buy goods and services.

The Secure Remote Payment Council wants a more open process in the development of a standard for tokenization, with the goal of ensuring a single token can be handled by multiple parties to improve security.

With the increased proliferation and reliance on public cloud solutions, combined with the recent high-profile data breaches that have occurred in the past few months, cybersecurity should be a top concern for both issuers and retailers who handle sensitive financial data.

Westpac New Zealand plans to leverage mobile technology on several fronts in the coming year, powering contactless payments while maintaining more control over customer relationships than it would have if it signed on to a telco-led venture.

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.

BJ's Wholesale Club is planning to convert its co-branded credit card program to chip-enabled MasterCards.