Apple Pay


Report: Mobile Wallets Reach ‘Tipping Point’

This week Apple Pay celebrated its third birthday, and ACI Worldwide and Aite Group released data on rising mobile wallet usage, indicating that consumers in the U.S. and Europe are starting to catch up with those in Asia and Latin America where mobile wallets dominate.

M-Wallet Roundup: Apple Pay, ANZ, CaixaBank, Starling, Samsung

It’s been a busy week for mobile wallet partnerships. Several companies announced deals to offer mobile wallets to their customers in the U.K., Australia and Europe. Challenger bank Starling says it’s the first in the U.K. to offer in-app provisioning.

Are Plastic Cards Headed for Extinction?

Probably not. Even so, the case for virtual prepaid accounts is growing stronger. A journey through the landscape—including a stop at a recent Apple conference—shows why.

Walmart Pay Offers Instant Credit Access

Can a mobile payment service gain users by offering instant access to credit card accounts? Walmart is about to find out. The retail giant has launched a program that enables Walmart Pay customers to spend via their credit lines immediately upon approval instead of waiting for plastic cards to arrive.

Google Casts a Wider Net for Payments

Google has a new plan to become a bigger player in payments. The search engine and web marketing giant said that it’s enabling merchants and developers to “turbocharge checkout conversion” by making it easier for consumers to use the credit cards and debit cards stored with Google.

Alipay Expands in North America with First Data Deal

The Alipay online payment platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group is moving further into North America through an agreement with payments technology provider First Data. Alipay is considered the world’s largest online and mobile payment platform, with more than 450 million global active users.

Google’s Android Pay Gets a Hand from Banks

Google is banking on mobile apps to boost its mobile wallet. The Android Pay parent has linked that service to a handful of banking apps, giving consumers the ability add their cards more quickly to the mobile wallet.

Western Union App Integrates Apple Pay

Facing increased competition from mobile P2P services, money transfer giant Western Union has made a move to bolster its own mobile offerings. U.S.-based users of Western Union’s mobile app now can use Apple Pay to send money from within the app domestically, or to more than 200 countries and territories.

Vroom, Vroom: Vehicles Accelerate the Future for Payments

A drive through the emerging landscape of in-vehicle transaction projects shows a wide variety of services that could appeal to consumers and push payments forward. But there’s still work to do before automakers are off to the races.

Chase Pay Acquires MCX Mobile Payments Technology

Another bell has tolled for the mobile payment service operated by the nearly 3-year-old MCX, a consortium of large retailers. JPMorgan Chase, whose own Chase Pay mobile wallet has been making serious strides, has acquired the technology that underpins CurrentC, the MCX mobile payment product that never went beyond pilot stage.

Prepaid Gains More Love from Canadians, but Bank Execs Might Have Worries

Reloadable prepaid cards are a hit with Canadian consumers, with 95 percent of them saying they are satisfied with the products in 2016. That represents an increase of 22 percentage points from 2015, and stands as the highest satisfaction rate for all payment tools, according to the second annual survey from the Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization.

Chase Cuts Deal With Best Buy, Loses Mobile Password

Look for Chase Pay at the POS at your local Best Buy, just in time for this year’s U.S. holiday shopping season, Chase announced Sept. 14. Chase this week also made a noteworthy security move. On Sept. 12, JPMorgan Chase—without announcing it—reversed its security position on its mobile app, removing the need to type in a password once a customer has already been authenticated by either Apple’s Touch ID or an Android biometric scan.