Mobile Commerce

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 …

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 …

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 …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday published guidance on how merchants can accept card payments through smart phones and tablet computers while protecting sensitive cardholder data. The guidelines, however, do not bring to an end an 18-month-old freeze the council has imposed on approvals of software applications for mobile …

For months, the carrier-backed Isis mobile-payments initiative could boast just one accepting merchant, the Utah Transit Authority in Salt Lake City, one of two cities it plans to launch its service in this summer. That changed on Tuesday with the announcement that Isis has signed some 50 retail companies both …

Google Inc. breathed a bit of new life into its struggling Google Wallet franchise on Tuesday with the announcement that it is releasing directly to the public a new Android-powered phone that features the Wallet app. The so-called unlocked device, a Nexus smart phone, will work on any carrier network …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday introduced what appears to be the first commercially available mobile remote deposit capture service for corporate entities. Widely known in electronic-payments circles for its TV ads for its consumer-based mobile check-capture product, Chase is now seeking new clients for its Image Deposit Direct Mobile …

As more and more companies vie to put mobile card-acceptance gear in the hands of tiny merchants, acquirers are starting to look at signing up merchants on their own merchant account rather than using the more traditional—but also more time-consuming–process of establishing an account for each seller. The method isn’t …

EBay Inc.’s top brass made it clear on Wednesday that mobile technology is dominating strategic thinking at PayPal Inc., even though it does not yet account for a significant share of transaction volume for the eBay unit. Addressing stock analysts during eBay’s quarterly earnings call, eBay chief executive John Donahoe …

With rivals like PayPal Inc. and Square Inc. having made moves recently to enhance their point-of-sale payments offerings, Intuit Inc. on Tuesday confirmed it had bought AisleBuyer LLC, a 3-year-old startup whose technology lets consumers check themselves out of stores with their handsets. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, …