Stripe

The major technology companies that have chipped away at incumbent payment businesses face much larger competition from this year’s big processing mergers, but they’ve also bulked up through fundraising and product development.

The fintech is now worth $10 billion more than its top rival, Square; cost cuts, asset growth and share buybacks could offset the headwinds from low rates.

As incumbent merchant acquirers have gotten larger through massive M&A deals, Stripe has been bulking up as well, including a fresh investment to fuel a cross-border merchant technology stack.

Stripe and JPMorgan Chase are firing rapid shots in their battle to win businesses, with faster payments as the centerpiece of their offerings.

Stripe is joining the throng of providers offering merchant loans based on payment receivables with Stripe Capital, a service for e-commerce companies already using Stripe for payments processing.

There are at least 250,000 software companies around the world that have the potential to become electronic payments companies, writes Infinicept's Todd M. Ablowitz.

Marqeta was in on the API digital payments game early, but rivals from Stripe to Wirecard are aggressively expanding digital payment solutions for diverse consumer and B2B use cases.

Both companies want money to be "programmable." But how to go about it is a matter of dispute.

Stripe has launched Chargeback Protection through its machine-learning fraud prevention system called Radar.

It’s just one part of one regulation in one region that addresses one business practice, but for Stripe, Strong Customer Authentication is a ticket to unlock markets across multiple business types.