There are lots of new technology driven payment startups, though most still at least partly rely on the traditional card/bank model.

Barclaycard has embedded payments technology in lots of wearables over the past few years, including gloves and jewelry.

Financial services companies such as PayPal, Lydia and RBC are testing chatbots on platforms such as Slack and Facebook Messenger.

The payments industry has been overrun with innovation in mobile, wearable and cloud-based digital payments. But many niches are years — if not decades — behind this trend.

As more payment and financial services companies use the app store, there's vulnerability to new cyber attacks that try to take advantage.

The mobile point of sale company's partnership with the coffee chain was designed to bring Square's mobile payments technology into Starbucks locations. But the partnership didn't pan out and ended a couple of years ago.

The card handles multiple currencies and is designed for students and underserved market segments.

Contextual commerce is the next big thing in retail as the payments transaction slides to the background. But it relies on building sophisticated consumer relationships.

How much do Germans like cash? Consider the following common German phrase: "Geld stinkt nicht," which roughly translated means, "money doesn’t stink."

China’s Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, is continuing its acquisition spree by purchasing stakes two digital payments firms, including South Korea’s Kakao Pay and the Philippines’ Mynt.

When Zelle launches, it will not allow users to share information about their payments with other folks in their network. That decision puts the P-to-P service on a different course than Venmo, its fast-growing rival.

In the gig economy, more companies need to make more frequent payments to workers, and that need is being met through the use of open development tools and web delivered services to power complex transactions.

Most new payments and financial services innovation isn't tied to the actual payment, making hosted and cloud solutions a good fit for right sizing resources.

When Zelle launches, it will not allow users to share information about their payments with other folks in their network. That decision puts the P-to-P service on a different course than Venmo, its fast-growing rival.

London-based Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) has purchased Malta-based financial services software development company Spectre Technologies.

India's latest government-supported payments initiative, Bharat QR, officially launched on Monday, aiming to provide an interoperable mobile payments platform linking small merchants and consumers across channels via several major card payment networks.

For some time now, restaurant chains have been adding mobile order-ahead options, betting they’d be popular with their customers. But even they were caught off guard with just how big of a hit the technology is turning out to be.

International money transfer service TransferWise Ltd. has announced an integration with Facebook Inc.’s Messenger that will let people set up foreign exchange transactions over the chat service.

When e-commerce fraud spikes, it can be tempting for merchants to pile on more controls and risk turning away otherwise legitimate transactions that appear to be fraudulent. The alternative is often to shut off these controls altogether and leave themselves vulnerable to criminals.

The mobile device and its embedded technology can make a strong combination to protect user ID, and comply with new European regulations for security.