Gulf Oil L.P. becomes the latest fuel retailer to offer its own mobile-payment app with the introduction Tuesday of Gulf Pay. The service, scheduled to be tested at some New England and New York locations in the first half of 2017, eventually will accept Mastercard Inc.’s Masterpass digital wallet. Further …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews As retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. ramp up their mobile wallets, the tech companies that offer general-purpose SimplyTapp Inc. developed the original HCE technology. Google, now the main subsidiary of Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet, included HCE in late 2013 in Android 4.4, also …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Not all private-label charge and prepaid card programs are equally successful, and so neither will be the proprietary mobile wallets recently launched by merchants. Factors that are likely to lead to a successful app include the strength of the retailer’s brand, its commitment to either convenience …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group is bringing its POS app store based on its Telium Tetra operating system to the United States this year, company officials tell Digital Transactions News. POS apps enable merchants to load and use business software than can help with employee scheduling, manage …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Big markets like the United States and China have been boosting EMV chip card shipments for years, but now those two growth engines are sputtering. Worldwide contactless EMV. Currently, most EMV cards in the U.S. market require users to insert the card into a chip reader …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The lingering impact of some retailers’ slow conversion to EMV chip card acceptance continued to plague prepaid card services provider Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. in the fourth quarter. Blackhawk reported late Wednesday that revenues fell short of its expectations in part because of a “continued EMV headwind” …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews PayPal Holdings Inc., which hasn’t been shy about laying out big money to enter new businesses, said on Tuesday it will shell out $233 million to buy TIO Networks Corp., a cloud-based processor that will deepen PayPal’s penetration of the bill-payment market. The acquisition is expected …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Merchant-services provider Cayan released a semi-integrated mobile-payment device that accepts EMV chip card payments, the Boston-based company announced Tuesday. Dubbed Genius Handheld, the device enables clerks to accept multiple forms of payment while standing in a store aisle or at a popup location to shorten checkout queues. …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews How enthusiastic are consumers about shopping on their smart phones and tablets? Enough that mobile commerce grew to $22.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, up 45% from $15.6 billion in the same period a year prior, says comScore Inc., a Reston, Va.-based data-measurement firm. That …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Six Pepsi-licensed bottlers will use USA Technologies Inc.’s cashless payments devices in 2,120 vending machines, the Malvern, Pa.-based vending-payments specialist announced Wednesday. USAT also released its fiscal second-quarter earnings showing revenue at $21.8 million, but a year-to-date loss of $2.2 million. The Pepsi bottler announcement—for a cooperative …