Mobile Wallets

• Merchant processor iPayment Inc. has agreed to promote acceptance of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s Samsung Pay mobile-payments service to merchants and resellers. Merchants can receive a merchant kit that includes window decals and other point-of-purchase items promoting Samsung Pay acceptance. Samsung announced its Samsung Pay reseller program in January. …

The latest battle between merchants and the major card brands has been brewing behind the scenes for months but went public Thursday when an advocacy group for big-box retailers charged that a new twist on network rules is slowing the progress of mobile payments. The controversy involves regulations long maintained …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Ever since Apple Pay debuted in 2014, payments pundits have wondered how fast mobile payments would catch on with consumers. The near-simultaneous arrival of two rivals, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, last fall only made the question more urgent. And now data is emerging that indicates …

• Some 27% of consumers who have a smart phone capable of performing mobile payments have used Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, or Android Pay at least once, according to the latest Mobile Pay Tracker survey from Auriemma Consulting Group. Of this group, 31% say they pay with these methods every …

• The number of merchants accepting chip cards increased to 1.4 million as of April 30, according to new data from MasterCard Inc. That’s a 17% increase from 1.2 million MasterCard reported in March. MasterCard also says 68% of all U.S.-issued MasterCard-branded consumer credit cards have an EMV chip. The …

• Wells Fargo & Co. announced its Wells Fargo Wallet will launch this summer and be incorporated into the banking giant’s mobile-banking app for Android devices, giving customers the ability to make contactless near-field communication payments directly from the app. The app, developed in-house, also will work at Wells Fargo …

Confronted with pokey EMV transactions, consumers and merchants in the United States may be eagerly looking for the contactless revolution to start. But in the United Kingdom, the wave-and-pay method is already picking up quite a head of steam. Consumers in the U.K. performed just over 1 billion contactless transactions …

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay mobile-payment service, announced in October, is on track for tests this summer with greater availability in the fourth quarter, according to Kim Fitzsimmons, head of global e-commerce and large omnichannel solutions at Chase Commerce Solutions. Fitzsimmons, who spoke Monday during a panel discussion at …

• Fitness-band vendor Fitbit Inc. has acquired the wearable-payments assets of Coin in a deal that closed May 12 and includes relevant personnel and intellectual property. Terms were not disclosed. Coin, which was part of a wearable-payments initiative announced earlier this year by MasterCard Inc., is best-known for a device that …

• Visa Inc. announced its Visa Checkout digital wallet now has more than 12 million consumer accounts and is offered by more than 675 financial institutions in 16 countries. “Hundreds of thousands” of merchants now use the platform, Visa said, making Checkout one of the fastest-growing consumer products in the …