By John Stewart Thursday’s surprise announcement by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that the retailing titan will roll out its own mobile-payment service next year raises questions about its commitment to Merchant Customer Exchange LLC (MCX), the mobile-wallet consortium that Wal-Mart helped launch three years ago. Starting this month, Wal-Mart will begin …

By John Stewart Ever since the launch of Apple Pay more than a year ago, mobile wallets have followed a pattern of recruiting financial institutions to enable their network-branded credit and debit cards to work in the wallet apps. But retailers are getting in on this action, as well, with …

One way consumers deal with the frustration of waiting in long holiday-season checkout lines at stores is to complain about it. But survey results from merchant acquirer Harbortouch show that many consumers are now actually willing to do something about it. Some 44.7% of consumers who reported having used an …

Banks and Silicon Valley tech companies aren’t the only players crowding into mobile payments. So are retailers and restaurants. Now, with its Chase deal, MCX has thrown the spotlight on the potential for merchant-controlled wallets. As American cities go, you can’t get much more typical, demographically speaking, than Columbus, Ohio. …

Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay aren’t products, they’re platforms. And that means they’re well set up to succeed, says Thad Peterson. With distribution of the needed functionality increasing on both the merchant and the consumer side, trial and usage will increase steadily over the next few years. The …

American Express Co. is now marketing a set of tokenization, security, and mobile payments services under the AmEx Enabled Digital Solutions moniker. Included in the service is the card brand and acquirer’s digital-wallet platform, near-field communication (NFC) and host card emulation technology, the American Express Token Service, and American Express …

By Kevin Woodward It’s that time of year when shopper impatience tends to flare, especially when scores of consumers are waiting in long checkout lines. According to a new survey from merchant-services provider Harbortouch, many consumers are willing to try something new to alleviate their displeasure with lines. A majority …

Late September saw the introduction of two more major third-party mobile wallets. One is called Android Pay and comes from Google Inc. The other is called Samsung Pay and comes from, well, Samsung, which just happens to make some pretty popular smart phones that run on Android. Meanwhile, a consortium …

The rise of tokenization into a major payments business helps enable mobile services like Apple Pay and Android Pay. But it could also pose a threat to the financial institutions that have historically issued the majority of the cards consumers use most often. That threat lies in the fact that, …

2015 is the year of EMV, as much for the various ways chip cards are causing anxiety for the payments business as for their putative benefits. But a host of other issues is keeping payments executives awake these days, as well. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the …