Stop me if you've heard this one: A lumbering, old-school consumer company tries to adapt to the digital age, but ultimately gets outsmarted by a Silicon Valley swashbuckler, either in the form of a wunderkind startup or a giant such as Amazon.com Inc.
It's a story that has played out again and again in recent years. But there's at least one ongoing battle that doesn't quite seem to fit the pattern: the race to win at mobile payments.
