Nearly half of consumers are interested in using mobile wallets, and they are not necessarily wedded to wallet products from banks, according to research released on Monday. Indeed, some 48% of U.S. consumers surveyed online in April said they are interested in mobile wallets. Of these, 80% expressed a preference …

Merchant processor Square Inc. doubled the number of physical stores at which its now-famous payment card reader for mobile devices can be purchased with Monday’s announcement that the reader is available at Walgreen Co., Staples Inc., and FedEx Corp.’s FedEx Office stores. The three new merchants collectively add 10,000 locations: …

A startup called Zooz this week announced it has registered more than 1,000 developers for a payment plug-in that, the company says, streamlines card-based payments while users are within an app. Zooz, whose product is available for both Android and Apple iOS devices, also launched an HTML5 version to allow …

Groupon Inc. redoubled its efforts to penetrate the point-of-sale market with its acquisition of New York City-based software startup Breadcrumb, whose product lets restaurants run transactions on iPad tablets. The deal, announced on Tuesday, follows news that the Chicago-based daily-deal giant is testing a mobile-acceptance service in and around San …

Visa Inc. has been saying for months that the Durbin Amendment’s transaction-routing and network-exclusivity rules, which took effect April 1, would take a bite out of its debit business. Gash might be a better word for the amendment’s initial effects, especially on the Visa-owned Interlink PIN-debit network. The No. 1 …

High-end department-store chain Nordstrom Inc., which has been testing some 6,000 mobile devices for customer service and checkout, expects to roll out a significantly larger number of the devices in the first quarter of next year and to add as much capability to them as it has on its cash …

A year after its birth announcement, the clearXchange person-to-person payments platform finally is set for its first national rollout through a new service called Send & Receive Money from one of its three big-bank owners, Wells Fargo & Co. But clearXchange, whose other owners are Bank of America Corp. and …

Just as payments executives were preparing to plunge into the Memorial Day holiday weekend, reports emerged that Groupon Inc. is testing a mobile-acceptance application in and around San Francisco. The reports, which are based in part on a solicitation received via e-mail by a merchant, indicate that the Chicago-based daily-deal …

Online merchants and other card-not-present retailers that have so-called interchange-plus agreements with their acquirers are enjoying significantly lower transaction costs thanks to the Durbin Amendment, if research from processor Litle & Co. posted on Wednesday is any indication. Litle’s numbers indicate its client merchants have seen interchange costs cut in …

PayPal Inc. on Thursday announced that 15 more retailers had joined its point-of-sale initiative, which means the No. 1 alternative-payments provider is now more than three-quarters of the way toward meeting its stated goal of having 20 national retailers accepting PayPal at physical stores by the end of 2012. PayPal …