Mobile Wallets

Seeking to entice small businesses to pay for purchases using their Visa business card, Visa Inc. on Wednesday launched Visa SavingsEdge, a program that rewards small businesses that have Visa business cards with savings and discounts on business-related services from about 60 merchants. The rewards and incentives include everyday savings …

A bill designed to allow merchants to have a choice of networks for routing credit card transactions failed to pass last year, but now international tensions could affect the proposed law’s prospects in the new Congress. The bill, called the Credit Card Competition Act, would mandate that merchants have a …

The Merchants Payments Coalition released a letter it sent to the House Financial Services Committee arguing the Credit Card Competition Act should be enacted to block what the merchant-advocacy group calls a “national security threat” from China UnionPay, a China-based credit card network. The House committee has scheduled a hearing for this morning on “Combatting the …

Seeking to improve merchant adoption of PINless debit transactions, the U.S. Payments Forum Monday released a white paper detailing the potential obstacles to PINless debit implementation in the United States and how they can be overcome. One advantage of PINless debit transactions is that they can be processed faster than PIN-based debit transactions, …

A company called AmazeWallet over the weekend said it will soon launch a so-called super app that will let users run blockchain technology on a mobile phone. The app will run such functions as mining tokens, exchanging cryptocurrency, and sending encrypted messages, the London-based company noted. AmazeWallet said it has …

Clickatell, a U.S. provider of mobile commerce and messaging solutions, announced late Thursday it is partnering with South Africa-based airline FlySafair to enable the airline’s customers to pay for checked luggage using the WhatsApp messaging channel. To make a payment, the airline’s customers access the WhatsApp channel on their mobile …

Observers have warned that an activist Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to act on multiple fronts that involve the payments industry. Early Wednesday it released its latest proposal, a move to cut the $12 billion it estimates consumers pay annually in credit card late fees. While the proposal could …

P97 Networks, a provider of cloud-based mobile-commerce technology to convenience stores, gas stations, and the automotive industry, is teaming with Visa Inc. to deploy Visa’s token technology as a way to reduce friction with in-car payments, as well as create new customer experiences for mobile-wallet users. P97 will use Visa’s …

Block Inc.’s Cash App unit says it is attempting to make it easier for consumers to salt away money with the introduction of Cash App Savings. The new feature allows Cash App users to deposit savings into a separate account within the app, build additional savings by rounding up their …

Elon Musk helped found what became PayPal back at the turn of the century, and now it appears he is moving on an ambition he outlined months ago to add a payments feature to Twitter, the social-media platform he paid $44 billion to acquire in October. The San Francisco-based company …