In a crowded mobile-payments market, companies that can focus their products with the merchant in mind have a decent chance to differentiate themselves from a pack seemingly targeting consumers.

Pay Anywhere LLC has released a software upgrade that expands point-of-sale features for merchants using Apple Inc. iOS products to accept payments through the mobile payments processing company’s software.

Smartphones and social media remain relative new frontiers for consumer banking, and they pose new risks.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking legal action to stop two operations that allegedly enabled telemarketers to place hundreds of millions of illegal prerecorded calls to consumers, including many who had registered their phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry.

Ingenico S.A. has taken a controlling interest in Roam Data of Boston, the payments hardware company announced Feb. 23.

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.