U.S. label Ralph Lauren is targeting last-minute holiday shoppers with banner advertisements for its Soft Ricky handbag found on New York magazine's fashion-focused blog The Cut's mobile Web site. Ralph Lauren placed its ads in three locations on The Cut's Web site to ensure that the reader takes notice when scrolling through the day's content, a move that extends the label's ongoing promotion for the handbag collection. Ad placement is key for marketers looking to attract, and also distract, the reader away from their original task.

Canada's National Bank is the country's leader in mobile banking services because of its strong performance in all criteria categories, including a top-ranking Web app for both design and transactions, according to a new report from Surviscor. The Surviscor 2013 Canadian Mobile Banking scorCard report assesses the mobile features and functionality offered by Canada's six biggest banks. National Bank took over the top spot from CIBC, which was last year's winner. "What you can do on a smartphone has changed even in the last year," said Glenn LaCoste, president of Surviscor, Toronto. "Banks keep increasing what they can do because …

Mobile commerce provider Spindle Inc. said it has entered into a agreement with iPayMobil Inc. that enables the two companies to provide micro-lending services to merchants. The service will be offered as a part of Spindle's existing payments suite. Merchants will be able to offer Spindle's free, downloadable mobile wallet app to their customers to facilitate credit approvals for time payments at competitive rates, according to the companies. IPayMobil, a developer of mobile payment solutions, will also license seven of its e-commerce patents to Spindle. These patents cover virtual currency and gaming, the processing of transactions by bridging customers and …

As we wrap up another year, looking back at the retail and technology trends that shaped 2013 can help us gauge what retailers can expect for 2014. Heated competition from online retailers and the lack of traction for mobile wallets show we're still in the early stages of digital and merchant convergence. The industry will continue to evolve in 2014 as mobile commerce continues to grow and retailers put more focus on creating targeted, personalized and seamless shopping experience for consumers. What can we expect from commerce and mobile marketing in 2014?

Ann Inc.'s Loft is building up its email efforts through a mobile advertising campaign that gives consumers a chance to win prizes in exchange for opting in to email newsletters. Loft's "Have Your Moment" campaign requires that consumers submit their email address to play a quick game. Since the retailer does not have a mobile site, these kinds of promotions give Loft a way to interact with tablet and smartphone shoppers.

According to NRF's latest holiday survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, nearly half (49.9%) of holiday shoppers indicate they plan to do the remainder of their holiday shopping online, the highest percent in the survey's 11-year history. As of Dec. 9, before the most recent weekend, 32 million holiday shoppers had not even started shopping. "It comes as no surprise that Americans are eager to shop online in the coming weeks as busy schedules and a shift in the calendar have made the convenience offered by retailers' mobile apps and websites even more attractive this year," said NRF president …

If you're among the last minute shoppers looking to satisfy a still-unfinished Christmas shopping list, there's an excellent possibility that your mobile device is your new best friend (assuming it wasn't already). According to published reports over the weekend, last minute shoppers are turning to the web - and, in particular, their smartphones and tablets - in record numbers to complete the final purchases of this holiday shopping season.

GoPago co-founder and CTO Vincenzo di Nicola has told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that a deal has been done with Amazon, which will use the start-up's technology as the base of "a new ambitious project". In a Facebook post screen-capped on Quora, di Nicola revealed that he is not joining Amazon as part of the deal, which has yet to be confirmed by the e-commerce giant. Founded in 2009, GoPago developed a smartphone application that allows consumers to browse, order, and pay for local goods and services before collecting them instore, skipping queues.

British retailer Ted Baker has a new campaign that links bricks-and-mortar with online marketing by enabling customers to take selfies in front of digital displays and upload them to social media for a chance to win a prize. The Merry Kissmas campaign is designed to drive store traffic and ultimately sales while also building social buzz about the retailer during the busy holiday shopping season. For the effort, shoppers at the retailer's stores in New York City, London and Tokyo are being invited to take a picture of themselves under a large digital mistletoe installation and share it with friends.

With the launch of Apple's iPhone 5S and more consumer acceptance around using mobile for authentication this year, marketers will leverage mobile fingerprinting in 2014 to supercharge their strategies. However, with Facebook and L'Oreal betting on facial recognition, the technology should not be counted out completely. Fingerprinting and facial recognition have been around for a while, but generated more marketing interest this year as brands look for new ways to leverage mobile for more sophisticated features. Based on Apple's lead with fingerprinting, brands will be close in following the technology, too.