Disruptors

Square's practice of using its merchant transaction data for risk analysis may seem innovative, but other other agile specialists—including Intuit—are finding ways to use new data streams to limit risk and deliver funds to borrowers.

Mobile wallets may not have eliminated cash and cards, but they are becoming almost unavoidable in many retail settings. However, there are still a few areas where mobile technology is slow to arrive.

Though many have tried and failed to get bitcoin into the mainstream, iPayYou CEO Gene Kavner is ready to take a page out of the playbook of Amazon.com, his former employer, to bring attention to his new bitcoin wallet.

Most of the largest banks are participating in industrywide blockchain standard-setting activities, trying to determine which use cases would improve upon existing technology. That's backward, says Chain, a startup whose product is already being used by banks.

The hits that alternative lenders like OnDeck Capital are taking shouldn't be a surprise for an industry built on unsustainable business models.

Entrepreneurs and other financial-technology experts give some common-sense advice including: watch your pennies, live in the right places and choose your associates carefully.

Deloitte is partnering with five blockchain companies as it seeks practical uses for the emerging technology in its consulting business.

American Express is giving a limited number of Uber riders access to Beyoncé's Formation concert tour, in the latest example of a financial services company allying with the tech-savvy ridesharing service.

Cutting-edge jobs — think chief innovation, strategy and data officers — are on the rise at banks and other lenders, and they are drawing free-thinking, tech-savvy candidates from inside and outside of financial services. American Banker asked several of them to recommend a book or other piece of writing that helped them tackle jobs that often were created from scratch.

Most modern mobile wallets didn't start out in their current form. Some didn't even start out as mobile apps.