Google Inc. may have just overhauled its nearly year-old mobile wallet, but it still appears to have plenty of plans for the near future of the product. For example, the Web giant is looking at adding a person-to-person payment capability and allowing users to save credentials other than payment cards, …

The prepaid card market closed in on half-a-trillion dollars in load volume last year, new data from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. show. Volumes on closed-loop cards grew 14% and loads on the newer open-loop cards increased 24%, according to Mercator’s ninth annual study of U.S. prepaid cards. In all, Maynard, …

Mobile solutions for parking payments received a boost last week with the citywide launch of Parkmobile USA Inc.’s service in Birmingham, Mich., and the addition of new features to QuickPay Corp.’s mobile-payment service for a major parking company in San Francisco. In Birmingham, drivers can now use Parkmobile’s mobile applications …

The massive deal PayPal Inc. and Discover Financial Services announced on Wednesday that will bring online-payments leader PayPal to 7 million physical U.S. merchant locations has all the hallmarks of electronic payments in the 21st Century’s second decade, including digital wallets and cloud-based technology. But the foundation of the deal …

The rapid insinuation of tablets into the retail point of sale took another big turn this week when Revel Systems Inc., a San Francisco-based startup, unveiled an iPad-based POS system designed for supermarkets. The new system has already been adopted by Marty’s Markets, a Pittsburgh grocery store, and another half …

The nation’s biggest debit card issuers have reversed polarity and are now promoting PIN-debit cards over signature debit and small-value transactions over bigger tickets, if the results of a debit study released this week are any indication. “Certainly, there’s a fundamental shift under way” among large banks to focus on …

Point-to-point encryption of card data has been a hot sell for merchant processors and vendors of security technology ever since the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) took effect in 2006 and especially after a spate of high-profile data breaches at merchants and processors not long afterward. Visa Inc., the …

Chicago-based Braintree Payments Solutions LLC, an independent sales organization specializing in online merchants, expects its $26. 2 million acquisition of New York City-based Venmo Inc. to position it as a direct competitor to PayPal Inc. in the person-to-person payments business and in digital-wallet applications. Venmo’s digital wallet allows consumers to …

For electronic currency provider Bitcoin, 2012 is proving to be a problematic year. In March, a well-known Bitcoin trading platform, Bitcoinica, announced a security breach in which hackers stole 43,554 Bitcoins. In May, a Federal Bureau of Investigation report warned that criminals could use Bitcoin for illicit purposes. And later …

Square Inc., the flashy mobile-payments startup that now counts Starbucks Corp. as one of its merchants, announced a new flat-pricing plan Thursday that puts the company squarely into the ring with independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers competing for established small businesses. And Dunkin’ Donuts, a rival of Starbucks for …