Digital wallets

Less than a month after eBay dropped PayPal's status as its preferred payment provider and implemented a new payment process for some users, one in 10 of those users is completing purchases via Apple Pay.

It seems that every year, at least since Apple Pay launched in 2014, it’s the “year of the mobile wallet.” And each year, like clockwork, the banks end up disappointed in the lack of traction in mobile wallet usage and adoption.

Along with activating contactless payments at its store terminals, Costco has opened its checkout lines to Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay. But there’s a catch.

Each of these wallets has developed its own personality — and, presumably, its own must-have feature to pull consumers and merchants away from the competition.

Samsung Pay is adding Chase Pay as a funding option, combining the strengths of two very different approaches to mobile payments.

With just two partnerships, eBay is cutting off a big opportunity for community banks.

The new alliances follow EBay’s February announcement to gradually shift its payments processing business from PayPal to Adyen.

The commercial that shows a landlord using Apple Pay Cash and iMessage to pry rent out of a tenant is meant to elicit a chuckle, but it also shows how P2P providers must aggressively communicate the capabilities of their apps.

In the evolution of mobile wallets, many companies have toyed with the idea that rewards would be a key driver for adoption. Others insist the improvements in speed and convenience are compelling enough on their own. Apple has parlayed both concepts into its promotions.

Apple Pay became available in Norway Wednesday for customers in Nordea Bank AB and Santander Bank to begin with.

The advancement of digital wallet technology in the past five years may be having a numbing effect on e-commerce merchants, who favor familiar brands over big-name wallet apps.

Samsung is now providing Samsung Pay to over 200,000 users in Mexico after four months since launching in the country.

Google's mobile wallet has gone through several iterations, but the most recent — Google Pay — signals a significant turning point for the company's mobile wallet strategy.

Starbucks mobile app is reportedly getting more use than Apple Pay, but the comparison is largely meaningless in a market that is increasingly prone to supporting multiple mobile wallets instead of a single victor.

Goldman Sachs will issue Apple’s new cobrand credit card, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the investment bank deepens its push into consumer finance.

Samsung Pay has worked to differentiate itself from other mobile wallets with Samsung Rewards, and now it’s enriching that program with a cash-back option and the ability to purchase rewards points like airline mileage programs.

Helped by its role as a transportation fare option, Apple Pay enjoyed a strong second quarter, driving revenue in Apple's services division as well as the company's overall $61.1 billion revenue for the quarter.

Some of the biggest digital wallets in the world — including Alipay and WeChat Pay — succeed because they have very little in common with other big-brand wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Even if most consumers aren't leaving their plastic cards at home in favor of mobile wallets, the very idea of using a mobile wallet is no longer cutting-edge. But a few companies go the extra mile.

The rise of online and mobile commerce is forcing merchants to rapidly re-engineer their checkout options, while keeping an eye on emerging models that leverage artificial intelligence to streamline shopping — or bypass the store checkout process altogether, like Amazon Go.