Disruptors

In what could bring major visibility to the emerging market for wearable payments, Visa today unveiled an NFC-enabled piece of jewelry it’s giving to 45 Olympic athletes on Team Visa.

PayPal's split from eBay was supposed to sweeten its appeal to merchants, but it’s also stoking rivals in the payments industry — in particular Visa CEO Charlie Scharf.

PayNearMe has long offered a service designed for consumers who prefer to use cash in a digital world, but even it has to accept the need to get on board with electronic payments.

Well before the mobile payments explosion, incumbents were already focused on how to respond to nonbanks "piggybacking" on banks' payments infrastructure. As the consultant behind a 1994 banking industry report on the threat put it, "there is no time for delay."

The Federal Housing Administration's loan sales are drawing more attention after a recent critical report said it was resulting in vulnerable borrowers losing their homes.

As more mobile apps and businesses push plastic payments to the background, they also give prepaid card accounts a chance to reclaim the spotlight.

Robots aren't yet coming to take over, but they will be taking orders — and MasterCard payments — at a handful of Pizza Hut locations in Asia.

The nascent industry's early success will mean very little if these new companies don't take necessary steps to position themselves for the long term.

Google revealed a dizzying number of projects at this year's Google I/O event, and it is courting developers to turn each of them into a thriving commerce platform. Whether or not Android Pay was mentioned by name, it was an undercurrent of nearly every offering.

If the DAO, an automated, leaderless "company," lives up to the hype, it could radically transform corporate finance and governance. But many wonder if the entity's record crowd sale is kosher under securities laws.

Interest in smart contracts is growing, in part because of the promise of lower legal expenses. But the programmers of these self-enforcing, automated agreements will still need to consult with lawyers to translate the terms into code.

Google’s upcoming personal assistant and cross-platform messaging apps make substantial use of payments, though the transactions exist entirely in the background to encourage a smooth user experience.

Banks are trying to upgrade tech offerings, from mobile banking to bill pay. But that's easier said than done, in part because the biggest core processors use their dominant market share to restrict access to banks' networks. They do this, in part, because they offer their own competing tech products.

Technology leader BBVA Compass has been ahead of the pack in real-time payments, neobanking and fintech investing. Manolo Sanchez shares his vision for next steps: the bank's developing API marketplace and "Uberized" digital banking.

BancAlliance, a network of community banks that has been snapping up loans from LendingClub, is weighing whether to suspend purchases on the online platform after the company said it's overhauling internal controls.

The payment giant's technology chief says he has an eye on bitcoin, the blockchain and the fintech competitors that have flooded the payments arena — and vows his company will consider partnering with some of them and can beat the rest.

The distributed ledger technology has an answer for updating every core function of the antiquated financial system.

Citigroup is testing Bluetooth beacon technology in a pilot that gives customers cardless access to branch ATMs after business hours, among other services.

Key factors point to marketplace lenders rebounding from their recent setbacks and continuing their growth.

It is imperative for regulators and lawmakers to approach the online small business loan market with care and an understanding of how these lenders expand access to credit.