The very first mobile electronic payment system was patented back in 1995 by Gaston Schwabacher, and ever since then the end of the traditional wallet has been near. Today, the way technology stands and seems to be currently progressing, the demise of the wallet has never been so imminent. Could this be heralded as the start of a brand new age of monetary transactions? These amazing products seem to think so. Tired of carrying around debit cards, credit cards, gift cards, and all your other pieces of plastic? Well, with Coin, you only have to carry one. This San Francisco-based startup …

Restaurant chain Pizza Hut and floral and gift retailer 1800Flowers are participating with Visa Checkout for its nationwide NFL campaign, offering promotions and exclusive deals to the platform’s enrollees. With football being a prime focus of the fall season, Visa Checkout is attempting to expand its presence as mobile payments become more prevalent. A multi-channel approach, Visa’s campaign to promote Visa Checkout takes numerous paths of reach to appeal to a variety of consumers, which in this case, are all tech-savvy football fans.

Baidu Inc., China’s biggest search engine, is challenging the country’s No. 1 e-commerce company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., by adding services that help shoppers find retail stores and retrieve product information. Baidu agreed to invest in mapping companyIndoorAtlas Ltd., which allows users to find their way through malls and office buildings, the companies said today. The search operator also unveiled a headset that can delivers product information to shoppers and a mobile service that makes it easier for consumers to find nearby businesses.

Apple reportedly has reached deals to lower its card transaction fees with five of the largest financial institutions in the nation as part of the Silicon Valley giant’s to-be-launched payments venture. The financial institutions are American Express, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Capital One, and Bank of America. We’ve reached out to all parties involved and all declined to comment. Rumors about the deals were first made public by Tom Noyes, a financial technology investor and former head of channels at Citi, and confirmed by Bank Innovation sources.

THE initial public offering of shares in Alibaba, due shortly on the New York Stock Exchange, may raise more than $20 billion, making it one of the biggest IPOs on record, and value the Chinese e-commerce firm at $150 billion or more. But is it worth it? There are certainly reasons to believe so. The firm dominates online shopping in China, which has passed America to become the world’s biggest e-commerce market. In terms of gross sales, Alibaba is bigger than eBay and Amazon combined. And unlike Amazon, Alibaba makes significant profits. Bolstering the case for optimism is the firm’s …

The smartphone has always been damned (and rightfully so) as the most difficult device on which to complete a purchase. Soon, however, it may become the easiest. PayPal this week rolled out One Touch, a new mobile payments feature that allows a consumer with a PayPal account that is linked to her mobile device to complete a purchase on that device literally with just one touch, something Amazon.com Inc. mobile customers have been able to do for years.

Indications that McDonald’s could be ready to launch a near field communications mobile payments platform in two weeks signal that, after trials in other countries and parts of the United States, the world’s largest restaurant chain finally feels it is able to get a much-demanded service right. An internal memo sent to McDonald’s franchises this week informed employees that they must be trained on the near-field communication (NFC) payment systems by Monday, Sept. 15, by which time the hardware must be installed and tested. 

Procter & Gamble’s Olay is embracing image-recognition platform Blippar and its augmented reality capabilities to promote the brand's Fresh Effects products with print ads in a number of beauty magazines, such as Hearst’s Seventeen and Elle magazines. Marketers have been experimenting with numerous mobile tools to revamp their print ads for the past several years. Olay’s ad features conversion capabilities to encourage viewers to obtain a free skin consultation via the app and then proceed to buy the products.

Although Apple’s iPhone 6 has taken a back seat in the headlines this summer to more interesting rumors pertaining to the company’s long-awaited iWatch, iPhone 6 will likely surprise many consumers when it’s unveiled next week along with a vast array of snazzy new features and capabilities. Chief among the new bells and whistles is that which is made possible by Dutch chipmaker NXP. The company is said to be behind iPhone 6′s NFC capabilities.

7-Eleven is building customer loyalty by launching a program that lets customers earn a free cup of coffee with their purchases through the convenience store chain’s mobile application. In the “Every 7th Cup Free” coffee-rewards program, every time a customer buys any size cup of coffee, the cashier will scan the member’s bar code in the app, resulting in a coupon for a free medium coffee after six purchases.