ISO & Agent

From fairly humble beginnings three years ago with the low-fee Bluebird prepaid Amex card and the Serve platform, Walmart has gotten more and more aggressive — and welcoming — with payments innovation.

Near Field Communication has been the burr in the saddle of emerging payments technology these past five years.

Glacier Restaurants, having examined the wide array of choices to tap mobile technology, has concluded that the best entry-level mobile transaction is the digital gift card.

Since the dawn of the modern mobile payments era, Starbucks has positioned itself as the poster child for how the technology can resonate with customers. And it's not about to rest on its laurels.

It's hard to come by hard data on consumers actually using mobile wallets to pay in stores, but these consumers do exist.

Moscow-based startup Cardberry is planning to launch an app and device to streamline discount and loyalty cards.

A late surge in shopping and pent-up demand for women's clothing gave a boost to holiday sales, according to early spending figures.

The concept of a multi-merchant rewards program appeals to cardholders, but the widely advertised Plenti program managed through American Express has not yet reached its potential, according to new data from Auriemma Consulting Group.

Revel Systems has opened a new office in London to facilitate its growing business in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The Internet of Things is ready to take off in modern retail in the coming year, spurred by a growing connection to consumer payments.

One in every three card-present transactions globally from July 2014 to June 2015 involved an EMV-chip card, according to EMVCo.

Target Corp. is tight-lipped on the details of its proprietary mobile wallet, but reports of the retailer's plan for a software-based wallet app early next year are adding to the concern that the mobile wallet market is becoming oversaturated with options too early in its lifecycle.

JetPay Payment Services, a unit of JetPay Corp., is working with the lending platform provider Credibly to give JetPay's distribution network access to Credibly's technology.

Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are coming to China in early 2016, in a potential defensive move by China UnionPay to fend off competition from domestic mobile payment rivals on the rise in China, including Alipay and Tencent.

London-based Powa Technologies has formed a 10-year alliance with China UnionPay to extend the PowaTag smartphone shopping app to CUP’s 1.3 billion credit and debit cardholders.

Following its promise to make mobile point of sale products a key revenue-driver for the company, Verifone Payment Systems released a new mobile card reader for independent and micro merchants.

One of the more perplexing elements of the slow, long-awaited march to EMV-chip cards in the U.S. is the lack of awareness that still pervades among merchants and consumers alike.

Global Payments and Heartland Payment Systems have a chance to create an international powerhouse focused on small to medium sized business, restaurant and education payments, if they can meld their technology post-acquisition and retain Heartland's management.

Despite the incessant fanfare around mobile wallets, biometrics and the Internet of Things, the slow-and-steady move to EMV security is in the spotlight of Verifone's revenue prospects in the coming year.

Wirecard Group and Alipay are collaborating to provide European retailers with barcode technology enabling Chinese tourists to make point of sale payments using the Alipay mobile wallet app.