Disruptors

Square merchants who sell in the online Square Market can now accept payments in Bitcoin.

Even the biggest success stories in mobile payments have skeletons in their closets. But each company learned from its mistakes and was quick to adapt.

Retail and consumer financial services veteran Jane J. Thompson has become a member of the VeriFone Systems Inc. board of directors, the terminal manufacturer announced March 26.

Bitcoin companies are getting more recognition as serious contenders, and as they grow they are filling their ranks with people who established their careers in the mainstream payments industry.

Circle Internet Financial, a startup aiming to make the digital currency Bitcoin more user-friendly for merchants and consumers, has raised another $17 million, bringing its total funding to $26 million.

Innovation can come from unlikely places. Five years ago, few would have guessed that the most widely available mobile wallets would be developed by companies like Starbucks and Google, which built their names in completely different fields. Several more disruptors are joining the scene, with even weirder origins.

Starbucks now gets 14% of its in-store U.S. payments from its mobile app, the company reported at its annual shareholder meeting today. This indicates a steady increase since June 2013, when it received 10% of U.S. payments through its mobile app.

These 20 women have reached impressive heights in a traditionally male dominated industry and have played a vital role in helping their organizations stay ahead of the curve.

Innovation requires the ability to tinker, test, break and repeat. Strategy and its close derivatives increase and delay the cost of failure. Business cases, focus groups, market analysis and roadshows, among other things, divert resources and defer action.

Starbucks, which handles more than 11% of its weekly transactions as payments from its mobile app, is planning to add several new features for iPhone owners.

Beacons, or Bluetooth Low Energy transmitters, are seeing a burst in popularity as components of mobile payment systems. The devices, which can be roughly the size and shape of a nightlight, allow retailers to detect a mobile app user's presence in the store.

Granted, journalists can be scavengers; they're nosey and can be positively annoying when they want information. But why does a whole group of crypto-anarchists and technologists think they have the moral high ground?

Knab, a branchless bank based in Amsterdam, is aiming to attract 250,000 customers by 2017 through the promise of smoother payments.

The online lender is about to surpass the $1 billion mark in loans and it just received another round of venture funding that will help keep the momentum going.

Ripple Labs, which facilitates payments in mainstream and virtual currencies, is creating a developer portal and supporting a new accelerator. Already its efforts have made it possible to connect the Ripple payment network to websites that run on Magento's e-commerce platform.

New Media Insight Group and Loop are promoting different types of mobile payment technology designed to avoid interoperability issues with current payment terminals.

Citadel EFT, a credit card processing firm, announced Tuesday that it is exploring ways to allow state-licensed marijuana businesses to accept electronic payments from their customers.

When Apple makes its long-awaited plunge into mobile payments, it is more likely to create a closed system for Apple customers than a truly open mobile wallet for all consumers, a new study from Celent says.

Payments innovation comes quickly, and often from outside the banking industry, leading Associated Bank to create a special procedure to monitor the tech market and customer preferences.

Jay Sidhu's Pennsylvania company is building a separately branded bank that, like Simple, will target a demographic that feels no particular affinity toward traditional banks.