Modern technology has turned the payments industry into a juggling act, particularly for those charged with deploying new techniques to protect payment card data.

Mobile commerce is here and isn’t going away. We can all agree on that. And I think we can all agree that it’s the banking industry’s opportunity to lose, but to date, most banks remain very slow to take action.

Less than two weeks after expanding into 15 Latin American markets, online remittance provider WorldRemit has launched its services in the U.S.

Virtual Piggy, which provides the Oink online wallet service for their youths, will release a prepaid Discover card to extend its offering to retail stores.

Banks and other traditional payment companies need to keep an open mind when assessing the market today as new entrants build systems to disrupt the old models, said Christine Cumming, first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Square is adding global support for its Register merchant services app, a move that allows the company to measure demand in new markets before investing in the distribution of its hardware and other services.

An estimated 30% of American smartphone owners will use Apple Pay or Google Wallet while holiday shopping, according to a study commissioned by Stratos Inc.

Mobile payments provider iZettle is expanding into the Netherlands with its payments application, mobile card reader and business management software.

PayStand has established flat rates for online payments through electronic checks, saying its new format will allow non-profit organizations and service businesses to avoid credit card fees.

PayPal's support of the Pebble smartwatch, an older and less expensive alternative to the Apple Watch and Android Wear watches, signals the acceleration of mobile payments in devices other than smartphones.

In my dreams, I can walk up to any cashier and make a payment by waving my hand over a terminal, much like Obi Wan Kenobi's "These aren't the droids you're looking for" trick in Star Wars. And that's all I would have to do.

It's not just merchants, issuers and technology companies that are using mobile technology to sell new payment services. As a business software provider, Intuit has been uniquely positioned to link its products to a number of payment initiatives.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), commonly referred to as Metro, will launch a contactless payment pilot to open doors for open-loop mobile wallets to be used for transit fare.

Snapchat, in unveiling a person-to-person payment function this week through a partnership with Square Inc., joins a growing number of companies treating social media accounts as payment instruments.

Square, which made a short-lived attempt at digital gift cards in late 2012, is debuting a new gift card service today with a heavy emphasis on an older payment instrument: plastic.

V-Key, a mobile security provider in Singapore, has received a $12 million investment from the Ant Financial Services Group, the Chinese financial services company that operates Alipay.

Conferma has integrated the MasterCard inControl service into its global travel payment network.

A week after making Discover the first credit card offered in its mobile bill-pay service, PreCash Inc. has already seen a spike in the use of Evolve Money, which previously accepted only debit cards.

Snapchat, a photo-based messaging service, has added a payment capability based on Square Cash, Square Inc.'s person-to-person payment system.

Apple Pay's launch about a month ago was accompanied by an almost unprecedented amount of hype and media attention, but it takes more than buzz to shift the world to mobile payments, and Apple's job is far from over.