The rapid advancement of social media platforms into the payments and finance markets, as well as millennials' devotion to apps like Venmo, were major factors driving a 47% increase in the U.S. digital person-to-person payments market last year.

Biometric authentication has been around for a while, but companies are still finding new uses for it in payments and commerce. Here are some of the latest developments.

The 'pays' and PayPal are among the technology companies that have build mobile wallets. As these apps add financial services, banks must consider building their own apps.

First Data is bulking up its e-commerce capabilities with an agreement to buy Acculynk.

Paytm, the Indian mobile payments startup backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has begun its global expansion by launching a mobile bill and tax payment service in Canada.

As cars add web connectivity, the opportunity to embed payments are almost endless. It's an opportunity that's too big to ignore.

In an increasingly digital world, retailers are working to bring transactions closer to the shopper and further away from traditional hardware.

Underbanked consumers will have an incentive to initiate mobile payments through PaySwag, an application that will issue rewards for using a smartphone to make a payment and allowing redemption at any time.

Ukraine-based KredoBank has launched a digital wallet that uses host card emulation (HCE) technology to enable contactless mobile payments with Android handsets, and it’s backing the new service with a promotional campaign to win prizes on Facebook.

PayPal's February acquisition of TIO Networks is the latest example of a growing trend of financial services providers targeting the underserved, developing products that bring the cash-heavy group into the digital payments fold.

Google Wallet may have passed the in-store and in-app payments baton to Android Pay late in 2015, but it has simplified its person-to-person payment capabilities by extending its Gmail integration to Android phones.

The shape of health care reform is a work in progress politically. But removing paper from billing should be a noncontroversial piece of the solution.

Samsung, terminal manufacturer Ingenico and Swiss app developer Smartlink are teaming up on an odd premise: Rather than treat wearables as vessels for a mobile wallet, treat those devices as a handful of bills and coins.

3-D Secure has had its struggles as a standalone fraud solution, but the 15-year-old authentication system is playing a key role in a new e-commerce security product from Simility powered by artificial intelligence.

Seoul-based Viva Republica, which is seeing brisk growth with Toss, its person-to-person payments app, recently drew $48 million in venture capital funding. The series C funding round was led by Silicon Valley’s Goodwater Capital, along with PayPal, Bessemer Venture Partners, Altos Ventures and Partech Ventures.

Many banks and money transmitters have built successful billion-dollar businesses around P-to-P payments without social sharing and letting users send emojis.

Mobile money apps have proven to be a major force in building financial services in emerging economies, but under the hood they can be starkly different.

The technology from MCX's CurrentC wallet, which never formally launched, will get new life with Chase Pay, which debuted in 2016 with Starbucks, Best Buy and commitments from MCX members such as Walmart.

The move may prove particularly helpful in reaching rural parts of India, where the latest smartphone technology has not arrived.

The certification covers compliance, risk and strategy expertise as the payments industry becomes increasingly digitized and global.