Amazon

In announcing plans to export Just Walk Out to other retailers, Amazon rattled the emerging autonomous checkout industry and raised questions about its ability to amass even more data than it already has about consumer consumption patterns.

Banks, especially smaller ones, are more worried about the competitive inroads that Apple Pay, Venmo and others have made than they are about tech companies' incursions into other financial segments, according to a new survey by Promontory Interfinancial Network.

Consumer response to banking by smart speaker has been underwhelming. But a handful of financial institutions keep plugging away in hopes customers warm to the advantages of verbal commands instead of pushing buttons.

The $800 billion grocery industry is keeping a sharp eye on a strip mall in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. There, sandwiched between a nail salon and a bank branch, Amazon.com Inc. is working on the first in a new chain of grocery stores set to open this year.

Investors think the billions being shelled out to keep up with the likes of Amazon might be better spent elsewhere.

Payment industry players are expected to present testimony on Capitol Hill before a House financial technology task force on Thursday that’s weighing a bill to prohibit stores from refusing to accept cash.

The payments industry is a hotbed of innovation, and many of its larger players are eager to claim patents on new developments.

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.

The local payments acceptance technology of cross-border fintech dLocal is now available for Amazon users in Chile.

Moynihan says the bank’s consumer market share could be doubled; retail terminals would connect customer’s hand print with their card information.

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 recent explosion of online shopping tools pointing users to the lowest prices for items — particularly on Amazon — appears to be making the e-commerce giant nervous.

Silicon Valley giants are better innovators, software developers and data managers, but banks' inherent advantages shouldn't be discounted, says Sonny Singh, a senior vice president at Oracle.

Digital banking will become less visible because it will be embedded in other daily activities with the help of AI, voice interfaces and other emerging technologies.

In trying to adapt and survive in an increasingly tech-dominated world, banks may unintentionally give up their most valuable commodity — their relationship with the consumer, and the data that comes with it.

Policymaking has moved at an agonizingly slow speed compared with the exponential growth of technology, leaving regulators and lawmakers facing a huge task over how to keep up. 

Amazon is starting the new year with a major payment technology deployment at more than 11,500 gas stations, providing the e-commerce giant with an added leg to its rapidly expanding payments network ranging from checkout-free stores to Whole Foods to its own planned grocery chain.

Europe's PSD2 data-sharing mandate is inspiring banks such as BBVA to form unconventional alliances.

Gift cards will be the most-requested item this holiday season again, and for the first time, one in three U.S. consumers buying gift cards will opt for digital versions, opening new possibilities for merchants that are anxious to counter Amazon's influence and improve user experience for stored value.

The international regulatory group said that despite some benefits from tech firms' incursion, the companies' efforts may present operational and disruption risks.