Mobile Commerce

Technology continues to drive change in the way riders on America’s mass-transit systems pay fares. While a few agencies have cast their lot with contactless card systems that also accept general-purpose debit and credit cards with contactless chips, other systems are turning to smart phones as add-ons to existing fare …

  Diners visiting a Tim Hortons restaurant in Canada and the United States now have a new way to pay for their meals and coffee. The restaurant chain, which has more than 3,600 Canadian locations and 870 in the United States, has added a mobile-payments function to its smart-phone app. …

The mobile-payments variant known as host card emulation captured its biggest financial-institution backer yet with a deal between Russia’s Sberbank and Sequent Software Inc. Sberbank will launch a commercial service “later this year” using HCE software from Mountain View, Calif.-based Sequent, an official with the bank tells Digital Transactions News. …

The Isis mobile-wallet consortium said Wednesday it is activating new wallets at the rate of 20,000 per day. That rate, achieved over the last 30 days, represents a doubling of the rate Isis saw in the previous 30-day period, the company said. The upbeat news from Isis comes as some …

Apple Inc. is making a change in the mobile point-of-sale hardware it uses at its 254 U.S. retail stores. In an exclusive deal, the consumer-brand manufacturer has begun using mobile POS devices produced by VeriFone Systems Inc., the San Jose, Calif.-based payment-terminal maker says. Apple outfits its employees with mobile …

The private operator of Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters announced Tuesday that drivers will be able to pay with mobile phones at all of the city’s metered street spaces later this summer. The expansion reportedly makes Chicago the biggest market for mobile parking payments in the country and comes just three …

Sequent Software Inc. on Tuesday launched a solution that will let card issuers take advantage of so-called host card emulation, a protocol that allows issuers to provision digital cards for mobile payments while bypassing the phone-based secure element. With the new solution, issuers will also be able to embed their …

EBay Inc.’s first-quarter conference call Tuesday was as remarkable for what chief executive John Donahoe did not say as for what he did say. Asked by a stock analyst for an update on PayPal Inc.’s move into physical stores, Donahoe added little to what eBay and its PayPal unit have …

Independent sales organizations and acquirers considering mobile ticketing as a value-add service to sell to merchants have a new option. n The service works like this. Merchants use a Web portal to set up their events, including details about the name, Web site, times, available tickets, and pricing. Chirrpy also …

  PayPal, the payments arm of online marketplace eBay Inc., has put out a call for more resellers, including independent sales organizations, acquirers, independent software vendors, and value-added resellers. PayPal, which has set up a dedicated Web page soliciting partners, says its ideal partners include “folks that share a similar …