Google Payment, a company owned by Alphabet Inc., obtained an e-money license in Lithuania, joining a growing number of fintech firms that have secured permission from the Baltic nation to offer financial services across the European Union.

Facebook’s payments ambitions have made banks wary for years, despite many false starts. But now it looks as if Facebook is pivoting to develop a remittance business, starting with a cryptocurrency project in India.

The digital ID market has massive potential, but many fundamental problems that must first be overcome. Among them: The companies best positioned to provide a viable digital ID platform are not the ones best positioned to benefit from it.

Established as a transit-fare and small-value payment card in Hong Kong nearly 20 years ago, the Octopus Card is making a transition to a virtual prepaid card for online shopping.

The ubiquity of plastic payment cards makes it hard to imagine a future without them, but Japan’s JCB card network already envisions it.

The SEC is already ramping up action in the cryptocurrency space, with stronger moves in the year ahead, and market participants should be preparing to respond, according to Aaron Kaplan, a securities lawyer and founder at Prometheum.

The payments processor was among numerous firms earlier this year to withdraw an ILC charter application over questions about its plan.

The industry’s technology priorities and budgets are headed for a distinct shift in 2019. What’s in: new initiatives in digital banking and analytics. What’s not: new initiatives built on blockchain technology.

While credit cards have been around since the 1950s and debit cards introduced years later, they both have become indispensable to the modern consumer. In fact, in certain retail sectors consumers can only use payment cards or mobile payments to make a purchase.

Fortunately, banks and financial institutions can take action to protect their apps in untrusted, potentially hostile environments, writes Samuel Bakken, senior product marketing manager for OneSpan.

Latin America’s fast-growing e-commerce industry is providing opportunities to provide payments gateways for cross-border transactions originating in countries that don't favor digital or credit card payments.

Neither Amazon nor Starbucks could be described as a traditional retailer. But they both use their shared headquarters city as a playground for developing digital and in-store innovations that all merchants and payment companies will have to respond to the years ahead.

PayPay, a mobile payments company backed by SoftBank Group Corp., Yahoo Japan Corp. and India’s largest digital-payments company Paytm, said it’s updating its app to strengthen security after multiple complaints from users of wrongful charges.

Beyond flashy and visible mobile-driven innovation and transaction options, many executives don’t see the need and opportunity that resides behind the scenes, according to Don Halliwell, director of marketing and communications at Zafin.

If they don't have them in place already, financial services firms need to provide digital budgeting tools, mobile payment and banking services before young consumers flee to other providers, says Chris Koeneman, senior vice president of strategic solutions for MOBI.

Cross-border payment startups like TransferWise and Xoom achieved rapid market growth by enabling consumers in emerging markets to receive funds via mobile wallets, cutting out intermediaries. Now legacy remittance giants Western Union and MoneyGram are improving their own resources to send funds directly to recipients' mobile wallets.

Many banks and government officials are dubious about crypto, but Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel lets businesses pay their taxes with it and has put all the state government’s expenses on a public ledger.

The video game industry serves a decidedly digital, tech-savvy audience with a propensity toward digital payments, but has been plagued by inconsistencies in payments to developers and a lack of a consistent rewards program for loyal players.

TransferGo will use the funding to fuel international expansion and increase market share particularly across Turkey, India, Ukraine and Russia.

Regulatory and demographic shifts have altered the path to credit for younger American consumers. Those shifts have opened up lending opportunities, particularly at the digital point of sale. Merchants, startups and financial institutions are all vying for a share of this (potentially very) lucrative business.