Swedish payment company Klarna has agreed to purchase German payment provider Sofort from Reimann Investors, Sofort's majority shareholder.

Swedish pharmacy chain Apoteksgruppen will launch SEQR, Seamless' mobile wallet.

The country's Federal Reserve banks have made clear that they want to see a much faster nationwide payments system within 10 years. Now comes the hard part: developing a plan to make that happen.

VeriFone reported a loss in the fiscal fourth quarter, but beat its internal guidance, and is touting new mobile payments initiatives as a way to improve performance in the future.

PayPal has purchased StackMob, which provides a development platform for mobile payments.

TAMPA, Fla . -- Digital wallets played a much larger role in the payments landscape in 2013, with players inside and outside credit unions introducing wallet solutions aimed at winning the battle for consumer data as much as interchange.

As payment companies add more mobile applications to accept transactions and speed processing, authentication will become more complex, says Todd Wilkinson, CEO of Datacard, which plans to bolster its identity technology for government and financial services clients via its acquisition of Entrust.

Discover Financial Services has begun testing a mobile payment system using biometric technology at its Riverwoods, Ill., headquarters.

Discover Financial Services has joined the Fast Identity Online Alliance, or FIDO, a group of companies working to develop new standards for online authentication.

WASHINGTON -- A credit union executive told the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that so-called patent troll abuse is harming CUs and other small financial institutions.

Online bill pay technology developed with small business users in mind is lacking. But new offerings could provide companies with greater functionality, while also helping financial institutions reduce risk and build stronger customer relationships.

Amazon has purchased GoPago, a company that enables consumers to use mobile apps to prepay for goods before picking them up at a store, according to reports.

Prepaid payment network Blackhawk is offering a selection of electronic gift codes at Coinstar's coin-counting kiosks.

Chinese central bank officials told third-party payment service providers to stop offering clearing services to online Bitcoin exchanges, according to China Business News, which is affiliated with the Shanghai government.

Facebook has deployed a feature called Donate that allows people to contribute directly to nonprofits through the social networking site.

Card identity and personalization company Datacard has agreed to acquire Entrust, a company that sells digital identity technology.

Mitek, having successfully promoted its imaging technology as a way to deposit checks and pay bills with a smartphone's camera, is now taking aim at retail payments.

The docket at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals quickly attracted appeals to Judge John Gleeson's Dec. 13 ruling to approve the class-action swipe-fee settlement on an antitrust case that has lingered in his court for nearly nine years.

VoiP provider Rebtel has debuted Sendly, an app that allows users to send money to prepaid mobile subscribers in more than 50 countries.

Mobile point of sale services provider I Love Velvet has purchased WeXpay, an electronic wallet company.