John Adams

Square's merchants have shown early interest in cryptocurrency payments, and if merchants accept this new concept, it could exist along with other Square services to support numerous use cases, including broader financial services.

Even in mature markets, consumers may not feel very connected to their payment cards. This is making issuers more reliant on selling data-driven experiences over simple transaction processing.

The future of brick and mortar retail is somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. Buried beneath a virtual sea in a place once called Xanadu is an underwater version of New York, a nautical Times Square where marquees scream “Piranha of the Opera,” and “Krill Grill.”

By experimenting with palm-print hand wave transactions, Amazon is putting its resources behind another work-in-progress technology that traditional retailers will almost certainly have to invest in just to keep pace.

Last week, Indian regulators ordered an antitrust probe of Walmart and Amazon while Jeff Bezos and other Amazon execs traveled to New Delhi to tout a $1 billion investment to digitize local businesses. The message is U.S. investment is welcome, as long as U.S.-driven data mining is kept at bay.

The move to dump passwords in favor of more flexible authentication will likely happen in clusters, with schools providing many of the factors necessary.

Before Visa agreed to acquire data company Plaid for $5.3 billion, Mastercard had been pulling ahead in the race among the card brands to break beyond reliance on basic processing fees.

BBVA’s not sure if consumers or merchants will want to use an e-commerce marketplace to make bill payments in the same way they buy clothes — but if they do, BBVA wants to be the one to provide the necessary technology.

In the battle to control consumer data, Visa has made a major score by agreeing to acquire Plaid, a technology company that it could have seen grow into a competitor.

In the battle to control consumer data, Visa has made a major score by agreeing to acquire Plaid, a technology company that it could have seen grow into a competitor.