Disruptors

Apple's mobile wallet has been out for just four months, and already it has shaken up the way mobile payments operate at the point of sale. It has faced pushback from some merchants and banks, but it has also popularized new forms of security and other payment technology.

Samsung is widely reported to be adding mobile-payment technology from LoopPay to its next Galaxy smartphone. Such an approach would be vastly different from that of Apple, PayPal or MCX's CurrentC — and it would address a key issue with LoopPay's own business model.

Amazon.com is a savvy and influential company in the e-commerce world, but its efforts in payments have been less consistent. It has significantly changed the way people redeem rewards and shop on third-party sites, but it has proven less successful in person-to-person payments and the mobile point of sale.

More than a decade after spearheading the direct banking model of offering high-yield savings accounts exclusively online at ING Direct, Arkadi Kuhlmann is trying to reboot international banking for the smartphone.

While Visa and MasterCard aren't yet applying the same level of pressure for tokenization security as they are for EMV-chip cards, the card networks' CEOs are clear that this technology is their new expectation for e-commerce.

The telco-backed mobile wallet Softcard is at a significant crossroads. Though it once saw the debut of Apple Pay as an opportunity, Apple may actually be edging its rivals out of the market, and Softcard's next move will decide not only its own fate but also the strategies of the banks and merchants that could benefit from its technology.

MasterCard's Antonio Corro is building a new payments system in Myanmar, a country that's springing to economic life after decades of military turmoil and political unrest.

Apple Pay has secured a dominant position at the point of sale, with two thirds of all U.S. contactless payment volume coming through Apple's new mobile wallet, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. But this may not be the boost to mobile payments that many experts have long predicted.

Western Union is adopting a vastly different use of Apple Pay than what banks and merchants have so far considered.

The Federal Reserve System threw its weight behind a host of standards, goals and timelines yesterday that are likely to shape the quest to build a faster U.S. payment system.

Amazon.com's decision to quietly shut down its digital wallet app last week shows an uncharacteristic caution on the part of the e-commerce giant. Merchants throughout the Web use the company's e-commerce services, but the mobile and digital payments world is considerably more cutthroat.

If consumers, designers and artists led the discussion about how we make payments in the future, they would likely come out with a vastly different system than the one technologists are creating today.

Even in an alternative universe that exists only in cyberspace, real money is vital to the economy. Digital payments company Skrill hopes to bridge the real and virtual worlds to benefit its digital wallet.

Starbucks, which handles 16% of its in-store sales as mobile payments, is looking to push that number even higher. Its evolving strategy combines its mobile app, its gift card and its rewards program into a powerful package.

The Starbucks gift card is the foundation the coffee chain's mobile and rewards strategy, and for good reason. In 2013, one in eight Americans received a Starbucks gift card as a holiday gift. In 2014, it was one in seven.

2014 ended roughly for some of the biggest payment companies, and 2015 will bring even more challenges from rapidly changing technology and nimble startups.

While banks have generally been cool to virtual currency, the technology that powers Bitcoin is of considerable interest — enough to draw millions of investment dollars from several traditional financial companies.

Across the world, startups are using digital delivery to challenge companies like Western Union and MoneyGram, a battle that in recent months has become increasingly heated.

The digital-only offshoot of Customers Bank combines edgier technology — like letting consumers snap photos of their driver's license to open accounts — with a new business model that counts on interchange revenue rather than fees.

BBVA and USAA are among a group of participants in a $75 million investment in the Bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase, an unusual move given the cool posture most financial institutions have taken toward virtual currency.