Marketing via social-network tools, long thought to be a feature primarily of e-commerce, is rapidly moving to the physical point of sale as merchants seek new ways to generate sales and independent sales organizations look for ways to differentiate themselves. This move to the point of sale, meanwhile, has been …

n Visa Inc. announced on Wednesday a digital wallet aimed at increasing its share of transactions in mobile payments, e-commerce, and at the point of sale. n The digital wallet will store all the payment cards in a consumer’s wallet, including non-Visa branded cards, Jim McCarthy, Visa's head of global …

The hype still abounds, but mobile payments and banking seem to be taking some concrete steps this week toward wider adoption. –Mitek Systems Inc., the leading developer of software for mobile remote deposit capture, on Monday announced that five of the nation’s 10 largest retail banks now use its flagship …

At least some banks and merchants may be forging ahead into chip card payments, but presentations at an industry trade show this week leave doubt whether the rest of the industry is ready to follow. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has now enabled all of its U.S. stores with terminals to accept …

The telecommunications companies that own the Isis mobile-payments joint venture have apparently given up on the idea of creating their own merchant network and instead are redirecting their efforts on a mobile wallet, according to a published report. If confirmed, the Isis move means that the existing payment card networks …

Intuit Inc. on Monday dropped flat transaction fees for its GoPayment mobile-payments service just over two months after Square Inc. did the same thing, an indication that a price war could be breaking out between two of the major companies competing for brand-new and small businesses that use smart phones …

Nearly 90% of all bank fees merchants pay goes toward cash management and card processing, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Association for Financial Professionals, a trade group for corporate financial officers. Meanwhile, some 79% of retailers expect recent legislative changes, including the Durbin Amendment, not only …

Probably no pathway in electronic payments is more littered with the wreckage of failed processors than that of micropayments. But recent moves by publishers to charge for content is helping fuel renewed interest in the business of processing tiny transactions. Google Inc., for example, has developed a micropayments engine to help …

  We normally don’t use this space to toot our own horn, and this month will be no exception. But I do want to take advantage of the opportunity to draw your attention to our cover feature. This is our annual look at the players who are offering what the …

  Why Prepaid Cards Need Marketing TLC Regulation, public ignorance about prepaid cards, and negative publicity worry prepaid card executives, according to a recent survey. Researchers from Boston-based Aite Group LLC polled 24 senior executives during March’s Prepaid Expo USA conference in Orlando, Fla., and asked them to rate their …