Mobile Wallets

If Square Inc. has made one thing clear in recent months, it’s that the company is determined to tie together two worlds most payments companies see as distinct: consumers on the one hand, and merchants on the other. That strategy took another step forward last month with Square’s announcement that …

Twenty European banks are working on setting up a pan-European payment system to challenge Visa, Mastercard and technology companies such as Google and PayPal, according to press reports. The project is code-named PEPSI, for Pan European Payment System Initiative.In a development that signals an opening in China’s long-protected payments environment, Chinese mobile-payment giants …

Digital wallets and other forms of digitized payments may be poised to take over the most-favored position for some consumers. Sixty-six percent of consumers, if offered rewards, discounts, and cash-back incentives similar to those offered by credit cards, would switch to alternative ways to pay, finds the 2019 edition of …

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has been seeking lately to differentiate its 4-year-old Samsung Pay mobile payments service, and on Monday came its latest gambit: an integration with Curve 1 LTD, a London-based startup that allows cardholders to consolidate all of their Mastercard and Visa cards into a single card or …

Google Inc. agreed to acquire Fitbit Inc., producer of smart watches and the Fitbit Pay contactless-payment service, for approximately $2.1 billion. Fitbit has sold more than 100 million devices in its 12 years in business. Google, whose Google Pay mobile-payment service has been in the market since 2015, is part of Alphabet Inc. The …

Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook reiterated Wednesday what his counterpart at The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said two weeks ago: the Apple Card’s debut was the most successful launch of a credit card in U.S. history. Cook didn’t provide numbers, though he did announce a no-interest promotion when the …

Amazon.com Inc.’s payments ambitions continue to manifest themselves with Monday’s announcement that Paymentus Corp. will enable bill payment and management via Amazon’s voice-controlled Alexa devices. Charlotte, N.C.-based Paymentus said billers on the Paymentus Instant Payment Network will be able to offer consumers a way to link their utility accounts to …

While fintechs and other nonbank payments providers continue to carve out more market share for themselves, banks could face losing up to $88 billion in payments revenue to them. That’s the assessment from Accenture, the consulting firm that on Wednesday released its latest report, “5 Big Bets in Retail Payments …

The number of Apple Pay users has surpassed that of the Starbucks mobile-payments service, says eMarketer Inc., marking the first time a general-purpose mobile app has become more popular than the coffee retailer’s. New York City-based eMarketer counted 30.3 million U.S. Apple Pay users, while Starbucks had 25.2 million users. …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has made no secret of its push to generate revenue from its highly popular—but free—Venmo peer-to-peer payment service. Its latest gambit came to light early Thursday with the news that long-time finance partner Synchrony Financial will issue a Venmo credit card for the U.S. market starting the …