Near-Field Communication (NFC)

With the introduction of transactional capability on smart watches and fitness trackers like the Apple Watch and Fitbit, the payments industry has eyed wearable devices as a field laden with potential for growth. Just how much growth came into focus this week with new figures and projections from International Data …

When Alphabet Inc. last month rebranded its mobile-payment service as Google Pay, it said further changes and features were coming. On Monday, it began to deliver on that prediction with dual announcements that herald an expansion of the service’s availability online and bring it to the potentially enormous market for …

If the payments industry needed further evidence that the EMV frenzy unleashed in the United States in 2015 is cooling off, it can find it in the fourth-quarter 2017 and full-year results posted Monday by CPI Card Group, one of the country’s chief manufacturers of chip cards. U.S. sales of …

More than two years after the U.S. migration to EMV chip cards accelerated, evidence of the success of the effort continues to emerge. Merchant acquirer Square Inc. says nearly 92% of the transactions it processed as of December were made with EMV-enabled credit and debit cards. While the advent of …

Discover Financial Services cardholders will be able to make point-of-sale contactless purchases with wearables and Internet of Things devices that use FitPay Inc.’s FitPay Payment Platform under an agreement announced Monday by the two companies. The new service will provision payment credentials using the Discover Digital Exchange, Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover’s …

As Apple Pay’s global user base climbs to an estimated 127 million individuals, a mystery about why even more consumers don’t use Apple Inc.’s mobile-payment service confounds one researcher. Loup Ventures, a Minneapolis-based venture-capital firm, on Thursday released its annual Apple Pay review. Among its findings is that the estimated …

The number of Apple Pay users globally increased an estimated 104.8% in a year, from 62 million in 2016 to 127 million in 2017, Loup Ventures, a research-driven venture-capital firm, said. Only an estimated 16% of global iPhone users have activated Apple Pay, the firm said, which added that it is …

A new guide from the U.S. Payments Forum outlines the considerations for selecting a mobile-wallet program and draws upon lessons from past successful and unsuccessful mobile wallets launches. In its white paper, “Mobile and Digital Wallets: U.S. Landscape and Strategic Considerations for Merchants and Financial Institutions,” the Princeton Junction, N.J.-based …

After announcing a coming rebranding for its Android Pay mobile and online payment service in January, Alphabet Inc.’s Google subsidiary on Tuesday formally unveiled the new Google Pay. But the rebranding, centered on a new mobile app for Android devices, is a work in progress, with more changes and new …

It was probably only a matter of time before someone combined contactless payment, wearable devices, and cryptocurrencies. On Thursday, Fit Pay Inc. announced a device that will let users convert digital currency holdings into fiat currency for transactions at any point of sale capable of contactless interaction using near-field communication. …