Mobile Commerce

Walmart Pay, the mobile-payments app developed by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is now broadly available to consumers as part of version 6.8 of the retailing titan’s shopping app, introduced this week for Apple Inc. smart phones. The app update, available on the iTunes store, says Walmart Pay will be “available in …

• Starbucks Corp. says mobile payment represented 24% of total U.S. tender in fiscal 2016’s second quarter, and the coffee company’s Mobile Order & Pay service accounted for 4% of total transactions, or about 8 million per month, up 40% from the first quarter. • Citing a “large increase” in fraudulent …

• SuperCom Ltd., an Israel-based identity-verification company, bought PowaPOS, the tablet-based point-of-sale unit of Powa Technologies Ltd., a commerce company that floundered. Powa’s two other units, PowaWeb and PowaTag, already have been sold. • American Express Co. reported $176.3 billion in U.S. card-billed business during the first quarter, up 4% from a …

• The Merchants Payments Coalition, a lobbying group for merchants on payment issues, attacked a Harvard University research paper as “just plain wrong” after the paper argued the debit-interchange caps in the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act drove up banking costs for consumers. • Terminal maker Ingenico Group …

Despite all the fuss the payments industry is making over mobile wallets, financial institutions have been remarkably low-key. With the notable exception of giants like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Capital One Financial Corp., nearly all banks and credit unions have ceded the initiative to nonbank players like Apple Inc., …

With the April 18 tax-filing deadline bearing down, a new cash-payment option from the Internal Revenue Service and payment processors PayNearMe and Official Payments lets consumers pay federal income taxes in cash at 7-Eleven convenience stores—and if there’s any money left, they can ease the pain with a Slurpee. PayNearMe, …

PayPal Holdings Inc.’s shares took a hit last week when a media report said Apple Inc. plans to launch a mobile-browser version of its Apple Pay service, potentially making Apple Pay a stronger competitor to the online and mobile-payments leader. But a payments analyst says any new competition from Apple …

If consumers wanted a mobile wallet in 2013 and 2014, they wanted it from their primary financial institution. But things changed in 2015, when PayPal and Visa surpassed banks and credit unions as preferred wallet providers. That’s the bad news for financial institutions in a new report about mobile wallets …

• Starbucks Corp. said JPMorgan Chase & Co. by year’s end will issue a Visa-branded Starbucks reloadable prepaid card that will allow cardholders to earn Starbucks “stars,” or loyalty points, for purchases just about anywhere Visa is accepted; the new card is an extension of Starbucks’ relationship with JPMorgan Chase’s …

Online and mobile-authentication technology provider Jumio Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale Monday, but the Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm expects to live on thanks to support from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Saverin, an early equity investor who has injected at least $23 million into Jumio …