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While Russian authorities are still trying to define the legal status of bitcoin, the virtual currency has found use in Moscow in the lobby of the country’s biggest bank.

Artificial intelligence could help make the payment process more efficient — if those in the payments industry understood how AI works.

Samsung Electronics Co. opened a branch of its early-stage technology investment program in Tel Aviv to better tap into the innovative engineering for which Israel is known.

Up until now, no fintech company has succeeded on a mass scale to offer solutions beyond its core product. But disruptors are trying to go in that direction, and banks should watch their efforts closely.

Bank of America plans to eliminate about a dozen senior positions at its corporate and investment-banking operations in Asia, the second time the U.S. firm is cutting jobs in the region this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Backwater no longer: Payment systems have long been a backwater of finance, but all that is changing, the Financial Times says in a special report on "The Payments Revolution." While the expansion of online shopping and mobile payment devices has spurred massive growth, "the industry is entering a period of extreme disruption. The dominant players — the banks and credit card companies — face an uncertain future. A fast-growing group of upstart financial technology, or 'fintech,' companies are lining up to challenge the incumbent payment providers by offering to meet customer demand for faster, cheaper and easier-to-use services — many of them using the blockchain." At the same time, regulators are increasing pressure on banks to reduce their fees, while traditional payment services "are facing an onslaught of cyber attacks from an army of increasingly sophisticated hackers and digital criminals."

In 2010, lawmakers passed bipartisan reforms to bring transparency and competition to a debit card swipe fee market that had previously been void of both. Now, members of Congress want to undo that progress.

The prevailing accounts payable model simply can't handle the sharing economy (also called the "gig economy"), according to Dovi Frances, who's putting cash and influence behind that theory.

BNY Mellon's Karen Peetz tops the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking list; the 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance list is led by Mary Callahan Erdoes at JPMorgan Chase; and Nandita Bakhshi at Bank of the West heads the 25 Women to Watch list.

An analytical mind; a drive to improve; a sense of humility; a leadership gene. Nandita Bakhshi identified these four traits as key in her move up to CEO.