Disruptors

Media properties and financial services rarely go hand in hand, but in Canada one partnership is testing whether today's millennials will be more open to that kind of pairing.

On the surface, traditional bankers and third-party disruptors may not always have the same approaches in mind, but the gap between their goals and how to go about it is increasingly getting smaller.

The rush to be a "one stop shop" for merchants by bundling mobile, Web and in-store payment technology is prompting many companies to join forces, resulting in several high-priced mergers and acquisitions in recent years.

The rush to be a "one stop" for merchants by bundling mobile, Web and in-store payment technology is proving to be a heavy lift, in terms of cash, resources and IT skills.

There have been many reports of bitcoin's demise, but the fate of one currency doesn't eliminate the many use cases that virtual currency could still address in payments, according to Evan Duffield, a Phoenix-based developer and founder of the virtual currency Dash.

Telcos, banks and technology companies have all taken their shots at mobile wallets, but as mobile commerce matures, the niche players are reaping the biggest rewards, according to Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer.

Digital Asset Holdings, the blockchain technology startup led by Wall Street veteran Blythe Masters, has raised more than $50 million in funding and expanded its board, the company said Thursday.

It may seem odd for a vendor of payment acceptance hardware to discredit EMV security, which is commonly seen as a catalyst for hardware sales, but that's exactly what MagTek is doing.

Banks operating on legacy systems created 30 to 40 years ago are becoming far more open to working with third-party innovators, which have no interest in the baggage that would accompany becoming a direct competitor to the banks themselves.

Prediction markets are the opposite of "yes men" — they're designed to induce experts to show what they really think. Could large banks, among the most siloed, opaque and politicized organizations around, use internal prediction markets to learn hard truths?

PayPal Holdings has named the head of a cryptocurrency firm to its board.

The latest in BBVA Compass' ventures with fintech companies will bring it a simpler way to offer investment advice to the millions of households that typically don't qualify for it.

Digital and alternative currencies are often cast as libertarian-friendly payment vehicles whose very mission engenders government antagonism. But in Canada, things are a bit friendlier.

Apple Pay is seeing a surge in U.S. bank support, with the number of participating banks rising past 900 with the recent addition of 60 regional and community banks, bringing it closer to full coverage in its home market. But Apple isn't having the same luck everywhere else.

Person-to-person payments are a sudden hotbed of innovation. Many banks and technology companies are rethinking their approach to P2P and finding ways to offer the service in a way that is genuinely appealing to the mobile generation.

Maybe disruptors, not bankers, are the ones who need to worry about an abrupt paradigm shift. Though many bankers fear having fintech startups pick off the most profitable parts of their business, history suggests this "unbundling" of banks is a recurring, temporary phenomenon that is generally followed by a period of "rebundling."

With emerging payments technology, it's important for legacy companies cover as many bases as possible. For MasterCard, this means putting its technology into everything from jewelry to home appliances to a reimagined take on the classic plastic payment card.

New patents provide a glimpse into how Apple Inc. plans to personalize the payments experience by harnessing Apple’s iMessage channel, bringing it in line with message-based P2P services from Venmo, Facebook, Google and others.

MasterCard is unveiling an app that takes the Internet of Things to its logical extreme, stopping only one step short of becoming Star Trek's instant food replicator.

It's impossible to predict the future, but many companies in the payments industry have already made commitments that will shape the year ahead. Here are a few things to expect in 2016.