John Adams

Stripe's quick disruption of the payment processing industry in the U.K. is measurable in at least one simple way — counting clicks.

The major U.S. telcos may have abandoned their mobile wallet ambitions when they sold off Softcard, but their power casts a shadow over efforts to build ubiquity across the market.

Harper Reed and Dylan Richard first burst onto Chicago's tech scene as part of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection team, and their social media wizardry is often credited for keeping the president in the White House.

The London-based bank payment network Earthport is expanding its application of distributed ledger technology (a system best known for its use with Bitcoin) to enable real-time cross-border payments and potentially reduce risk.

The small merchants that turn to Square for their card acceptance needs are also among the most reluctant to swap out their hardware for devices that can handle EMV-chip cards, so Square is putting into play a strategy that banks have long used to get consumers on board with new technology.

Rather than compete head-on with Square, Intuit is crafting a strategy of providing software that complements Square's offerings for merchants that have more complex needs.

Health and wellness apps may not much in common with small business payments and merchant services, but it was the fitness-tracking craze that lit a fire under Intuit to build an Apple Watch app for its clients.

The recent explosion of mobile commerce and payments would not have been possible without open and sharable technology, and the credit union service organization CO-OP Financial Services aims to duplicate that success with its own technology.

Visa's newly established Bangalore-based technology development center is rebuilding Visa's presence in India, bringing fresh ideas to some older projects.

As CEO of the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) mobile wallet venture, Brian Mooney must remain calm as his company faces an increasingly stormy market with no product to show for its years-long efforts.