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Apple and Samsung joined the Electronic Transactions Association this week, furthering the acquiring industry trade group's efforts to welcome technology companies as members.

The merchants and issuers invested in Apple Pay must maintain a strong emphasis on employee education — especially if the stakeholders want Apple's mobile wallet to avoid the fate of the many previous payment technologies that sought to displace plastic cards.

There was no shortage of talent in the room at American Banker's Oct. 9 awards ceremony in New York honoring the Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance. So it seemed appropriate for some of the industry's biggest success stories to offer advice to up-and-coming women in their fields. Here are 14 honorees reflecting on lessons learned in their own careers.

Total Systems Service has landed another user for its Prime 4 product, as Banco del Bajío of Guanajuato signed a licensing agreement to use the card and payments management system in Mexico.

Thursday night's celebration of American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking turned into a call for action for companies to build a pipeline of female leaders. "If we stick to the current rate of turnover, it's going to take 75 years to reach parity," said outgoing HSBC USA chief Irene Dorner.

The head of Key's charitable foundation is lauded at American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking Gala for her role in improving educational opportunities for low-income and minority students in Cleveland.

GoDaddy Operating Co. Llc has made a series of payments technology deals that are designed to give merchants an incentive to remain with the online domain name registrar.

Pinnacle Corp. has partnered with Sionic Mobile to bring two emerging payments technology trends—beacon-aided transactions and tokenization—to thousands of Pinnacle's fuel retailers.

CardConnect, an independent sales organization of First Data Merchant Services, has hired payments veteran Scott Dowty as chief revenue officer.

Mobile payment platform P97 Networks and decoupled debit provider Zipline will collaborate on m-commerce products targeting merchant and fuel industry clients that face competitive pressure to adopt mobile payments.

Mobile payment provider Powa is partnering with DataCap Systems to shorten the time it takes merchants to deploy mobile point of sale applications, a move the companies hope will provide differentiation in a crowded marketplace.

Providers of rapidly changing payments products such as prepaid cards, automated payments and dispute resolution are continuing to turn to independent sales organizations to reach targeted merchants.

Installment payment provider Klarna will share technology with e-commerce technology company Digital River as part of Klarna’s stategy to extend services to the U.S. and other markets.

ACI Worldwide is flexing its acquired bill payments technology muscle, inking a deal with financial technology provider Shaw Systems Associates Inc. that will allow Shaw's clients to expand loan payment options to their customers.

Wells Fargo Bank NA has joined a growing list of acquirers using an American Express program designed to help smaller merchants accept Amex card payments.

Hamstrung by low consumer and merchant adoption, multi-account cards are still a product in search of a market. But Stratos Inc. believes Bluetooth technology is the tonic that will lure users.

GoDaddy is partnering with online payments provider Stripe to entice small businesses to embrace e-commerce by adding faster credit approval and card acceptance.

The recent exploit of Signature Systems terminals, used by Jimmy John's restaurants and other clients, shows that the point of sale is still a key target for hackers. And the addition of EMV-chip technology won't scare them off.

Global Payments Inc. now calls its integrated solutions division OpenEdge.

InComm will work with the Merchant Customer Exchange to support digital gift card and loyalty programs for retailers, while also expanding MCX's CurrentC mobile wallet to more locations.