Mobile Wallets

Retailers wondering about the role of smart phones in their stores might take this figure into account: 36% of U.S. shoppers purchase via a mobile device frequently, and consider it a part of their regular purchasing behavior. That’s the finding from a recent DMI Inc. survey. DMI is a Bethesda, …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has released an Android version of its Walmart Scan & Go self-checkout app that consumers use on their smart phones. This version joins the iOS app currently being tested at a single Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Ark., and could indicate consumers are increasingly embracing the self-checkout concept just …

When JPMorgan Chase & Co. decided to recruit order-ahead capability for its Chase Pay mobile wallet, it settled on a 6-year-old mobile payments startup whose technology could give Chase Pay a vital boost in a crucial merchant segment. Meanwhile, the alliance could also bring tens of millions of new customers …

Vending-payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. is integrating its MORE. loyalty platform into Apple Pay, the company announced Thursday. The deal is designed to induce more consumers to use Apple Pay at almost 300,000 vending machines that use USAT’s contactless payment technology and to encourage them to use the MORE. program. …

Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit will launch two new smart watches in the first quarter of 2017 that will run on the new Android Wear 2.0 platform and will support Android Pay, Google’s mobile-payments service. Jeff Chang, product manager for Android Wear, announced the news in an interview with The Verge, a tech Web …

The NFC Forum, the Wakefield, Mass.-based organization that supports near-field communication technology, on Monday announced updates to three technical specifications and introduced a “candidate” spec. NFC is the technology most often used, for example, to link mobile wallets with point-of-sale terminals. One update, to “NFC Controller Interface (NCI) Technical Specification Version 2.0,” …

After PayPal Holdings Inc. in July signed a sweeping agreement with Visa Inc., and in September reached a similar deal with MasterCard Inc., giving PayPal access to the card networks’ token engines and thereby new access to the physical point of sale, observers wondered when the other shoe would drop. It dropped …

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay mobile-payments service has added an order-ahead feature that relies on functionality developed by LevelUp, a Boston-based mobile-payments and mobile-loyalty company. The new feature is available today for Chase Pay users at quick-service restaurants in Boston and will be usable at QSRs nationwide in “coming …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Buoyed by seismic political and financial events, the Bitcoin digital currency is picking up momentum in both its value and its adoption. Blockchain, a U.K. company that offers Bitcoin services, last week celebrated having issued 10 million wallets since its founding in 2011. That’s a doubling in …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Vending payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. says promoting Apple Pay at the point of sale produced a 36.5% increase in overall sales and a 55.5% increase in revenue from contactless purchases. Malvern, Pa.-based