Telling staff the tech frees up time is an important part of bot-enabled payment strategy, says Troovo's Kurt Knackstedt.

Consumers and banks are both concerned about security tied to contactless payments, says Fingerprints' Lina Andolf-Orup.

It's long been understood that transit systems are fertile ground for payment innovations.

Even without cryptocurrency, blockchain provides necessary security and processing benefits, says Tatvasoft's Vikash Kumar.

Square is testing out a new Cash App feature that would enable users to make free stock trades, according to a video outlining the product’s features seen by Bloomberg.

The new regulation in New Zealand shows other jurisdictions how best to address cryptocurrencies and their use in payments.

A reluctance to embrace change is keeping supply chain payments slow and labor intensive, says Adflex's Pat Bermingham.

The creator of the Zelle precursor clearXchange is heading a company building a blockchain-based international payment technology for banks.

Its newest offering is called Delivery Unlimited, which at $98 a year undercuts Amazon Prime's $119 fee.

The Marshall Islands is proceeding with the creation of a blockchain-based national currency, the Marshallese sovereign or SOV, the country said.

This ruling by the New Zealand Government shows the jurisdiction’s versatility in broaching how best to address cryptocurrencies and the implementation of regulations around their use in payments, says NEM Ventures' Dave Hodgson.

Mobile order, delivery and payment apps are proliferating at restaurants, but they're also becoming less distinguishable, posing an entirely new challenge as deep discounts become the weapon of choice.

Brazilian payments provider Ebanx is working with Alibaba Group to test a retail store that combines physical and virtual showcases to allow consumers to obtain Chinese technology products.

Researching how pain points make consumers work harder can fix payment execution, says UJET's Anand Janefalkar.

SumUp, a U.K.-based mobile point of sale company, needed a way to differentiate itself from larger rivals such as PayPal, Square and iZettle. Its solution is to offer faster settlement, in partnership with Starling Bank.

Collections professionals are often overlooked because they are forced into a reactive and uncomfortable role. In reality, collections teams are very similar to the much more lauded sales team, says Billtrust's Derek Bluestone.

Starbucks’ latest innovation doesn’t include camera-driven invisible checkout and doesn’t even come from Seattle. But for rank and file retailers, it may prove even more informative than watching the progress of Amazon Go.

High-tech heavyweights like Google, Amazon and Apple have tied payments to broader financial services, added to the view that banks are less relevant, writes Polyient Labs' Brad Robertson.

The world’s biggest restaurant company is buying startup Apprente Inc., a developer of voice-recognition technology for use in the restaurant industry, to help speed up lines. The idea is to eventually have a machine, instead of a person, on the other side of the intercom to relay orders to kitchen staff.

The large payment processor mergers were meant to give bigger companies a better way to compete against the nimble startups that were luring their customers away for digital services such as mobile point of sale. And post-merger, Fiserv and First Data have fired their first salvo.