David Heun

The steady march of smartphone technology makes mobile wallet adoption seem inevitable, but consumers still need convincing.

After two years of development and fundraising, Kerv Wearables says it is launching the Kerv Ring as a contactless payment device using a Mastercard prepaid account and the card brand's EMV chip technology.

If the megabanks' Zelle person-to-person payment service takes off, it will serve as much as a blueprint for collaboration as it does for digital payments.

Curiosity may not be the best approach for a cat, but Christine Larsen finds it to be a lifesaver in her role as executive vice president and chief operations officer for First Data.

As senior vice president of global commerce for Discover, it is no surprise that Amy Parsons says "my desk is in whatever country I happen to be in."

In a financial services career that dates back to 1983, Lou Anne Alexander has experienced many upheavals of the status quo of payment technology.

Early in her career, Monica Eaton-Cardone had to deal with the tough part of being a retail entrepreneur — constantly being hit with chargebacks on card payments — to ultimately develop an idea to help retailers navigate that unpleasant part of payment acceptance.

Executives in the payments industry know the key to future technological advances rests solely in the hands of the consumer. Without consumer adoption, advances in payments quickly collect dust. Reetika Grewal understands this reality particularly well.

In high school, Kara Kazazean joined the marching band and competed to be a leader for the clarinet section. As part of the selection process, aspiring section leaders participated in a rigorous leadership training program.

The Most Influential Women in Payments are the ones taking risks with new ideas and investments, and developing the technology that will forever change the way people handle money. Not only do they set an example for their peers, they are unafraid to learn from newcomers and are diligent about encouraging a freshness and diversity of ideas.