What better venue than the Olympic Games to showcase the latest in payments trends? Or, better put, what better place to showcase a payments trend that is groping for consumer exposure and acceptance?

Consumers living in remote areas of the world now limited to closed mobile-wallet services soon may have access to wallets usable anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

Though the hype around mobile wallets is at an all-time high, a lot of work remains before phones can be considered a mature venue for financial transactions.

This must be why Braintree Inc. has the word “brain” in its company name.

NEW YORK – Bankers, consumer advocates and other industry members gathered this week to hear officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outline their concerns about overdraft practices.

FORT WORTH, Texas – American Airlines FCU announced this morning it has signed with Jack Henry & Associates’ Symitar to convert the $6 billion credit union core processing system to the new Episys system.

Creating further competition in Nigeria’s mobile-payments market, First Bank of Nigeria PLC plans to launch a mobile-money service in collaboration with two telecommunication operators.

NASHUA, N.H. – Triangle CU is now offering check deposit by mobile phone and a new iPad application.

A partnership led by MasterCard Worldwide is trying to provide to mobile-phone users worldwide–and especially those in emerging markets–such formal financial services as funds transfers, bill payments, and purchases at brick and mortar and online merchants.

Mobile person-to-person payment options seem to be expanding exponentially, but who needs them?

If an online merchant or bank composed a fraud-prevention wish list, it likely would have two important factors right at the top: Confirm the customer is actually who he says he is, and make sure the device he is using to access our website matches his profile and hasn’t been used in previous fraud attempts.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has invested through preferred stock in GoPago Inc., a provider of emerging mobile payments technology, the bank announced Feb. 23.

SmartVoucher Ltd. this week added Denmark to its list of Scandinavian countries where consumers may use its Ukash vouchers to shop online.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. -- Live testing of CO-OP NextGen ATMS, which will allow all shared branching customers to conduct all of the same transactions at a Diebold machine, is underway at CO-OP’s headquarters lobby, the credit union-owned cooperative announced this morning.

Discover Financial Services’ Pulse electronic funds transfer network and Obopay plan to enable immediate funds transfers for Pulse credit union and bank members, the companies announced Feb. 23.

Raiffeisen Bank in Vienna is moving into contactless payments though an initiative it plans to roll out in April called CardMobile.

Trustwave wants to establish barriers at the “front door”–software-applications customers use to enter and move around a merchant or bank website–that many cyberhackers enter to attack payment systems and retrieve personal or card data.

Yet another emerging payment scheme sees an opportunity to claw at the soft underbelly of legacy point-of-sale payment systems, following in the footsteps of PayPal Inc., which is testing its traditionally online payment service inside Home Depot and Office Depot stores.

Collection industry executives will emphasize developing compliance controls and improving the customer experience in the next year, according to a survey conducted by Firstsource Solutions.

HOUSTON – PULSE Network and Obopay said this morning they will enable real-time money transfer capabilities for PULSE credit union and bank participants.