David Heun

It took a few years for mobile wallets to get past the aura of just a "cool technology" looking for a problem to solve, but Google Pay and its peers are clearly finding their niche as a way to embed payments with customer engagement tools.

With the Federal Reserve last month citing synthetic identity fraud as a growing concern for financial institutions, there's more pressure to detect fraud at the start of the relationship.

The Clearing House has been quite clear that it did not think the Federal Reserve's FedNow real-time settlement service would be necessary. But some of its executives are rethinking that stance.

If the retail giants' Merchant Customer Exchange payments venture collapsed under the weight of trying to create a one-size-fits-all mobile wallet to bypass card networks, then the implosion of that joint venture was the best thing that could have happened.

As mobile payment applications increasingly integrate with social media platforms, fraudsters are using a mix of bots and human labor to increase their chances of a successful account takeover.

To other companies, Apple Card's pitch to consumers is not just free marketing; it's an entirely new market for a traditionally business-centric product.

Banks, for the most part, have not advanced their core digital technologies as quickly as payments networks and disruptors ahead of the original PSD2 deadline. And the European Banking Authority has also cited the payments networks for not advancing the 3D Secure 2.0 online authentication model far enough to comply with PSD2 provisions.

For many entrants in the integrated receivables space, payment data is the foundation for nearly every other business process or decision. Increasingly, banks are latching onto data services and making them available to their small and midsize business clients.

Expense management provider Bento for Business has launched its Bento Pay B2B payment app with partner Dwolla, which has specialized in B2B payments the past few years after initially operating mobile wallet and financial institution faster payment services.

E-commerce's dramatic expansion gives any merchant the opportunity to sell in any market. That leaves payment providers scrambling for an angle in a crowded market.