The payments industry is quickly adapting to new technology, new regulations and new consumer demands. Here are 15 of the industry's major transformations already in progress.

Many companies are trying to harness technology to modernize the U.S. payments system, but startups and incumbents alike forget about certain stakeholders in the industry's massive value chain.

To say the Softcard mobile wallet had an interesting year would be an understatement. By the end of 2014, it had a new name and a new competitor: the formidable Apple Pay.

Capital One plans to take advantage of two major marketing initiatives — its support of Apple Pay and sponsorship of the Orange Bowl – to give its bank-branded mobile wallet a boost.

As new technology such as Apple Pay spark fresh interest in using smartphones for payments, many card issuers are striving to make the most of this enthusiasm. But for banks, the end goal isn't the point of sale.

When you are a company that started out 125 years ago as National Cash Register, you've had to reinvent yourself a few times.

The City of New York intends to develop mobile payment options for those paying fines for parking violations.

Chevron Oil Co. is planning to support Apple Pay at its gas pumps in early 2015, despite longstanding fears among consumers that using a cell phone while fueling is a fire hazard.

Apple Pay's October debut was arguably the biggest story in mobile payments in 2014. But it's only the prologue of a larger conflict set to heat up in the year ahead.

The digital currency movement is headed into 2015 still looking for a "killer app" to pull Bitcoin out of obscurity. Mixing Bitcoin's technology with the virality of social media could be the winning ticket.

CheckAlt has added electronic check payments as an option for consumers purchasing gift cards through CardCash.com.

Square is committed to its diversification strategy, furthering its transformation from a simple mobile point of sale provider to a company that also handles small-business loans, marketing and e-commerce.

One of the challenges WePay faces in handling fundraising payments is the lack of visibility into when a given fundraising event will result in a spike of payment volume that is beyond what the vendor can typically handle.

2014 was a big year for payments. Disruption came from within the financial services industry and from outsiders like Apple and Walmart. Mainstream payment companies had to respond to these new competitors as well as adapt to fresh attention from regulators and fraudsters.

Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio, has announced plans to support Apple Pay.

As computing devices get closer to the body and more Internet-connected, payment platforms will have to be flexible enough to work in a vast number of environments, according to PayPal's Joel Yarbrough.

The payment processor Stripe Inc. is one of the key parties enabling the Sony film The Interview to be rented and purchased online after it was pulled from theaters following terroristic threats.

The point of sale technology provider TouchBistro is partnering with Uber to provide free transportation service to restaurant patrons in Toronto.

A technology called "host card emulation" made a big splash when it became part of the Android operating system in late 2013, but 2014 marked the year in which the tech became a foundation for future mobile wallet development.

Late last week, hackers took down Payza's blog and posted a mocking message in its place, implying that they were sitting on a treasure trove of stolen data. Payza says this was merely a hacker's stunt, and that no data of real value could have been compromised, but the company must still deal with the event's damage to its brand.