Technology

Banks will listen carefully to what regulators say next about virtual currency in the U.S., but in the meantime many financial institutions view Bitcoin as far too risky to touch.

During World War II, Lockheed Martin created a program called Skunk Works, which used specialized teams of developers for lightning-fast brainstorming to accelerate the research and development of new planes. That is how a lot of payments innovation is getting done today.

Wal-Mart is both a powerhouse in retail and a pioneer in financial services. The company has championed numerous initiatives in prepaid and mobile payments, and it has also been quick to push back on technologies it does not like.

FleetCor Technologies is providing outsourcing services for Shell fuel cards in Germany.

Even though the U.S. has suffered a flood of retail data breaches, the payments industry has to take a global view of any security measures it adopts.

More than half of the value of B2B receivables 90 days or more overdue were written off as uncollectable by businesses in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Brazil, according to the latest Atradius survey of B2B suppliers in those countries.

Payments processor Stripe will partner with Facebook to provide technology behind the social network's "buy" button, according to a report in ReCode.

Are you in the cloud, or are you just making use of cloud technology?

PayPal is going slow when it comes to Bitcoin, limiting its current focus to emerging channels and relying on partnerships with virtual-currency processors in North America.

The payments industry has turned its attention inward, focusing on securing its own technology from fraudsters without driving off their customers.