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.

Capital continues to flow freely into financial technology ventures, many of which are repositioning themselves as aspiring partners for banks rather than would-be disruptors.

Community banks are at a crossroads as they face a threat from alternative lenders and the need to stay true to the traditional bank model. What they should do?

The heat of battle can forge some unlikely bonds, as demonstrated by MasterCard and Western Union’s collaboration with the four-year-old mobile financial service provider bKash, giving the incumbents a foothold in omnichannel payments and making them a bigger threat to other newcomers.

Airbnb, the company that disrupted the hospitality industry as Uber did to taxis, is sidling up to the fintech space.

Affirm, a three-year-old online lender that finances consumer purchases at the point of sale, has raised a $100 million in equity funding to help it boost distribution and develop new products and services.

Delaware, whose business-friendly laws have lured more than half the country's publicly traded corporations and more than 60% of the Fortune 500 to incorporate in the state, is now vying to become a hub for blockchain technology.

Verifone is hoping to beat the payments disruptors at their own game, introducing a mobile point of sale terminal for quick-service businesses, small retail shops and cafés that integrates payments with other consumer services.

Model legislation in the works would give state legislatures a template for regulating virtual currency businesses. The Treasury is lobbying against clear exemptions for firms that don't control customer funds.

Startupbootcamp's fintech accelerator in New York boasts an unusually large faculty of 225 mentors, trained to give candid feedback and prepare the class of 10 startups for the real world.

Members of a House Energy subcommittee had many basic questions for technologists, entrepreneurs and legal experts testifying at a hearing on digital currency Wednesday.