Mobile Commerce

PayPal Inc. announced on Thursday it will process payments when owners of electric vehicles charge up their cars at charging stations maintained by GE Industrial Solutions, a unit of General Electric Co. In what amounts to yet another venture into the physical point of sale for PayPal, the e-commerce processing …

The subject of vast amounts of hype, mobile payments are in fact becoming reality for many consumers. New findings from IDC Financial Insights show that 33.9% of consumers have made purchase on a mobile phone, up from only 19.3% in a similar survey last year. Mobile payments will further penetrate …

With much of the nascent mobile-payments business concentrated on consumer access via streamlined applications rather than browsers, news emerged this week that handset users are rapidly adopting apps. Indeed, usage of downloaded apps crossed the 50% mark in March and stood at 51.1% in May, according to figures released this …

Person-to-person payments continue to improve technologically and attract consumers, but providers still haven’t figured out how to make money from them, according to new findings from First Annapolis Consulting Inc. Linthicum, Md.-based First Annapolis in the second quarter tested a dozen P2P services from large banks and processors down to …

Google Inc.’s disclosure last week that 1 million Android-powered devices are now shipping each week with near-field communication (NFC) capability has renewed industry speculation about when NFC-based mobile payments will become a mainstream service. The shipment figure, a rare disclosure from the tightlipped Web search giant, came with weekly activation …

American Express Co. announced what it calls its “roadmap” for EMV and chip-based and mobile payments in the U.S., which means all four of the major U.S.-based payment card networks are now on record with plans to move beyond the magnetic-stripe payment card. Like the ones from MasterCard Inc. and …

Startup Revel Systems Inc. this week unveiled a device it is touting as a way for retailers using an Apple iPad for point-of-sale functions to run peripheral devices without an Ethernet router. The device, called the Revel Router, accesses the Internet via the iPad’s cellular connection. San Francisco-based Revel, which …

With a number of startup companies now offering bill-pay capability based on smart phones, old-line payments companies are starting to respond with services of their own, relying on their reputations as established players in electronic payments. One of the first is The Western Union Co., which this week introduced a …

Facebook Inc. has just done the equivalent of dumping the euro in favor of national currencies with its new policy that will phase out the Facebook Credits virtual currency. The huge social network, which also is introducing a way to pay for subscriptions, says the changes will simplify the user …

Hard on the heels of its announcement last week that it is now processing for some 2 million merchants and individuals, mobile-acceptance startup Square Inc. on Tuesday said it has added customer-loyalty functions to its Pay with Square and Square Register applications. The new functions will allow both merchants and …