The facial recognition development trail is dotted with starts and stops in its search for consumer adoption, from Mastercard's "selfie pay" to Apple's 3-D facial scan tests and the Federal Trade Commission's approval of biometric authorization.

Payroll advance provider Branch has partnered with Mastercard and Evolve Bank & Trust to offer a debit card that allows hourly workers to instantly access a portion of their earned wages ahead of their periodic paycheck.

Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo has made a €7 million ($7.8 million) investment in MatiPay, an Italian cash acceptance network that leverages wireless vending machines.

Rapid-fire acquisitions, partnerships and investments in the likes of Uber, Lyft and Grab are transforming these ride-sharing providers. And much of this activity is built on their ability to handle payments seamlessly as part of the experience.

Cash is not dead, but the burdens of ensuring access threaten to break long-standing ecosystems that sustain traditional payments.

The Federal Reserve’s FedNow instant payments system will dramatically speed up payment processing, essentially allowing people and businesses to receive money in their accounts within seconds of a transaction, says the Retail Industry Leaders Association's Austen Jensen.

Any entity questioning Libra runs up against the longstanding legal precedent set by private label gift and GPR, and myriad other prepaid account offerings, says payments consultant and researcher Richard Crone.

Libra poses risks not only to global financial systems, but also to existing companies’ broader payments business, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said in letter on Tuesday to Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and Stripe Inc.

The Swiss National Bank and stock exchange SIX will jointly explore how to make central bank digital money available for the trading and settlement among financial market players.

Companies like Stripe provide a needed source of capital, but should expand lending beyond their existing base, says Become's Eden Amirav.

Rather than homing in on specific methods to accommodate real-time payment processing, Wells Fargo realized a mix is the best bet to avoid inadvertently leaving parts of its client base in the dark.

Visits and conversion rates are important, but it’s also important to monitor what happens between the moment someone enters your website and the moment they decide to make a purchase, says Robin Reodica, product management executive at Bank of America Merchant Services.

Contactless payment transaction volume is soaring in Canada to the point where total credit card transaction volume is edging out debit card transactions for the first time because many consumers are using credit cards to tap and pay.

Susan French, head of product at BBVA Open Platform, discussed the bank's vetting of fintech partners and how it deals with the competitive threat that their products present.

Banks and merchants can already access solutions that can provide a real-time experience and process payments on the best set of rails for any particular use case, says BillGo's Kelly Seidl.

Canada is often at the forefront of payments innovation, with active fintech hubs and a national initiative to restructure the country’s transaction system for e-commerce. Yet outdated attitudes about identity risk linger, showing how hard it will be to achieve global digital ID at scale.

Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project has lost its first major ally. PayPal — where the head of Facebook's Libra project once served as president — has cut its ties. As a founding member, PayPal was expected to drive the payment-specific part of the cryptocurrency initiative.

German payments processor and technology provider Wirecard is launching new money transfer capabilities for users of the Viber instant messaging application.

Demand for a user-friendly way to shop and pay for tailored products requires action from those that want to stay ahead of the digital curve, says KBMax's Kris Goldhair.

Transit systems want to use contactless and open payment systems to address ridership declines, an innovative strategy that nonetheless is riddled with pain points due to how transit has traditionally modernized.