Amazon

We entrust tech firms with vast amounts of information about our daily lives, with an expectation that they will safeguard it. But have we become too casual in the trust we place with them in exchange for more personalized experience and convenience?

As the reigning technology giants demand consumers do everything through voice-controlled smart speakers, they may inadvertently succeed where smartphone-based wallets stalled.

Readers react to the change in tone at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the launch of voice-command banking on Amazon’s Alexa, how regulation affects financial innovation and more.

We entrust tech firms with vast amounts of information about our daily lives, with an expectation that they will safeguard it. But have we become too casual in the trust we place with them in exchange for more personalized experience and convenience?

Establishing trust, especially when it comes to online payments, is critical. People need to feel secure and confident that their personal boundaries won’t be crossed or their information misused, writes Rik van't Hof, director of product management front-end for Ingenico e-commerce.

With millions of Alexa and Google Home devices now in use, first-mover banks are rapidly developing services to let customers control their finances using only their voice — even if there are still many kinks to work out.

If CVS acts quickly and truly pushes synergies between its retail and insurance businesses, there is time for the company to establish a unique value proposition in reshaping the pharmacy experience.

In a world where consumers are tuning out TV ads easier than ever before with streaming services like Netflix, the e-commerce giant is giving advertisers a new platform to be in front of millions of people who like to shop, writes Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce.

Voice-based payments are part of the "instant gratification" consumers will expect from payment and financial services companies, writes Hicham Tahiri, a Paris-based fintech entrepreneur.

Merchants’ fates are inextricably linked to what customers want. So, as they continue to embrace frictionless experiences, merchants are under mounting pressure to deliver or risk losing out, writes Joseph Daly, COO of North American Payment Processing for Paysafe.

Only a few banks have so far integrated with Amazon’s personal voice assistant service.

As use of smartphone apps begins to surpass online channels at some institutions, banks are facing pressure to offer clients more robust services.

Because marketplaces are the fastest growing channel in the e-commerce space, many retailers and sellers that have multiple e-commerce channels will see Amazon’s service as a logical next step, writes Victor Rosenman, CEO of Feedvisor.

After 10 years in operation, Amazon Fresh didn’t grow quickly and the company shifted more focus to its fast delivery service Prime Now, which also offers grocery products.

Employees of a small or midsize business can learn customers’ needs and deftly toggle between soft and hard cross-sells at the perfect time, writes Michael Hiskey, chief marketing officer of Semarchy.

Amazon has introduced an augmented reality tool, giving customers an easy way to see how an item would look placed on any particular surface using a smartphone camera.

Since e-commerce and digital payments' inception, the state of the retail industry has been fluid, always facing new challenges and battles, writes Erik Morton, vice president of strategy and corporate development at CommerceHub.

Readers weigh in on Amazon as a bank threat, claims that big banks are poor fintech partners, whether there are too many banks in the U.S. and more.

Financial institutions should consider personalized campaigns and offers designed to convert customers to their debit or credit card, writes Bob Koehler, executive vice president of project management for SRM.

Banks around the world have spent the past few years preparing for competition from small, nimble technology startups. It turns out the real threat may be Jeff Bezos, according to McKinsey & Co. In its annual banking report.