As marketing becomes more expensive, issuers are under pressure to find new ways to lure merchants, according to Eric Marks and Sean Clark from West Monroe Partners.

Some banks are experimenting with virtual assistants that, going beyond the routine tasks they perform today, could offer investment advice or make mortgage loans 24/7. But will they ever be able to talk a nervous client through a market crash?

Contactless payments today seem to address the slowness of EMV contact without compromising security. And unbeknownst to many, it uses the same security protocol, writes Andrey Tikhonov, senior director of payment technology for Infinite Peripherals.

With the right focus and a little bit of pre-work, many companies can leverage ISO 20022 as the new global standard, writes Kate Risch Choi, a senior product manager for treasury and payment solutions at BMO Harris Bank.

Banking lobbies are still opposed to the Durbin Amendment, which would hurt a free market, writes Mark Horwedel, CEO of the Merchant Advisory Group.

Like many financial companies, the brokerage wants to go where customers are. Since that means communicating with them via a third-party platform, it is working through privacy and security issues.

As payments guru David Birch notes, multiple currencies spur competition and innovation, and can reduce stagnation, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Distribution methods are constantly changing and being altered so that the maximum amount of people can gain access to these unregulated currencies, writes Mariam Nishanian, a representative at Dentacoin.

Removing friction across channels and payment types not only leads to a transformative digital banking experience, it also helps ensure those positive outcomes translate to business success for financial institutions, writes Mark Little, senior user experience researcher for digital channels at Fiserv.

Knowledge picked up from the best customer-facing staff should be delivered by AI systems in a contextual manner at the right place and the right time to handle customer queries in the age of digital commerce, writes Anand Subramaniam, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for eGain Corp.

The simple act of moving money can have a big impact on any political movement, so banks and payment networks are often caught up in issues of national importance. Here are some recent instances where payments and politics came head-to-head.

Shopping cart technology, digital payments, advertising platforms and global order fulfillment allow new brands to compete on a global scale, writes Tony Holbrook, vice president of marketing and commerce at Ingram Micro Commerce & Fulfillment.

Artificial intelligence is helping detect breaches the human eye can’t. But it also gives hackers an edge.

In theory, businesses that want to run a payment service such as Stripe can sign up directly at their bank, with a competitive rate, writes Ryan James, CEO of Surety Bank.

If tokenization can help us recapture liquidity not only for currencies, but by digitizing the value of all assets, time and work in a more flexible, fair exchange, that’s exciting, writes Jason English, vice president of protocol marketing for Sweetbridge.

Collaboration will help make up for cost concerns from adopting the technology and ensure that the core vendors get the message of community banks’ interest.

A bot-powered wave is on the way, and some firms will adapt, others will simply perish. It will be survival of the fittest, writes Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup.

The real lag behind fintech started when banks rested on those online and mobile banking laurels and allowed other players in the mobile space to bypass them in working toward mobile point of sale payment services, writes Jack Jania, senior vice president of strategic payment alliances at Gemalto.

An analysis of a test shows runtime application self-protection (RASP) successfully defends mobile banking apps targeted by BankBot against overlay attacks, writes Frederik Mennes, manager of the security competence center at Vasco Data Security.

An encrypted website and secure network aren’t very helpful when customers have been unknowingly routed to a criminal’s lookalike site, writes Simon Thorpe, director of product for Authy at Twilio.