Consumers are increasingly jumping form one channel to another when shopping and paying, pressuring issuers and other payment companies to simultaneously accommodate older plastic-card models alongside the Web and mobile commerce.

There is a surge of activity in person-to-person payments, with the biggest banks going head-to-head with technology giant Google and other significant rivals.

American Express Co. is working with VeriFone Systems to allow consumers to redeem membership rewards to pay for rides in New York City taxis.

Square's new P2P service, Square Cash, is meant to be so straightforward that you don't need an app to use it — but Square published an app anyway. The Square Cash app joins a growing suite of Square apps for merchants and consumers.

Flint has released an Android version of its swipeless mobile card acceptance product, which relies on the smartphone's embedded camera to scan an image of a card to accept payments.

Wonga, a London-based provider of short-term loans, has purchased BillPay, a Berlin-based online payment and financing platform.

Udi's, which operates a group of cafes and pizza establishments in the Denver area, just launched a customized mobile payments program with the goal of obtaining the data that is normally invisible to it when patrons pay with credit and debit cards.

Many payments companies see a conflict between innovation and regulation, with each side perceiving the other as out of touch with their needs, particularly when it comes to new technology.

Western Union has renewed its collaboration with La Banque Postale, the banking subsidiary of La Poste, the postal services operator in France.

Some of the legal woes Schnucks Markets Inc. has faced since suffering a data breach from December 2012 through March 2013 were eased this month in a St. Louis court.

Signifyd, a company co-founded by PayPal and FedEx veteran Rajesh Ramanand, is launching an e-commerce fraud platform that attempts to combine shoppers' online and offline identities to better evaluate a transaction's legitimacy.

GlassPay, a new Google Glass app from RedBottle Design LLC, allows consumers to make purchases with bitcoins, a prominent digital currency.

Visa and global e-commerce company Borderfree are offering free shipping from Borderfree's clients to Visa cardholders in Southeast Asia.

ReD has expanded its relationship with Seattle-based WhitePages Inc. to provide its e-commerce merchant clients with more business and consumer data when vetting transactions for fraud.

Homeland Stores, a grocery store chain based in Oklahoma City, wanted to digitize its plastic loyalty card without having a vendor's brand get in the way.

While digital initiatives take longer to show their effect in the company's revenue, American Express Co. is still making investments in emerging payments and prepaid cards.

Mobile software developers increasingly use common platforms for payments and other functions. And many of those developers rely on Braintree, a company eBay is purchasing for $800 million.

American Express Co., the biggest credit-card issuer by purchases, posted a third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as customer spending climbed.

Capital One and General Motors are extending their co-branded card partnership with the introduction of a new GM MasterCard from Capital One.

MasterCard Inc. has certified On Track Innovations Ltd.’s Wave Near Field Communication device, which plugs into a phone's headphone jack to allow consumers to make contactless mobile payments.