Analytics

Discover has taken a deeper step into the airline miles rewards card competition, shifting the tone of its TV advertising with its first commercial for the It Miles card it introduced last year.

Wells Fargo and American Express have launched their third credit card product together.

Many emerging innovators want to incorporate digital advances into the incumbent financial services sphere, not necessarily leapfrog banks.

There is a lingering fear that enabling real-time transfers between consumer bank accounts will open a window for fraud that cannot be closed. But as the demand for real-time payments grows, two large bank-led consortia hope to address the banking industry's fraud concerns by developing an interoperable identity shield.

FuturePay hopes its alternative credit model can shake up in-store payments as the company plots to go beyond its e-commerce roots.

Bank regulators will stiffen their requirements and identity theft will escalate, but banks will toughen up their defenses.

At the start of 2015, there was a sense that Silicon Valley would soon rule the world of finance and that banks risked irrelevance. A year later, a more balanced picture has emerged.

Fidelity Investments is dropping American Express Co. and Bank of America Corp. as partners for its cash-back credit card, capping a year of fierce competition among networks and lenders for deals that bring in customers.

Holiday shopping doesn’t stop after December 25. It goes beyond that as many consumers buy goods post-holiday as well, boosting sales even more.

The holiday shopping season may be over, but that doesn’t mean that consumers will stop using their credit or debit cards in 2016.