Disruptors

Bitcoin may get the most attention, but several merchants are beginning to accept a digital currency called Litecoin, the second largest digital currency by market capitalization.

As more mobile wallets experiment with alternatives to Near Field Communication, Isis stuck to its use of the contactless payment technology. But will that prove to be a winning strategy or just a payments-industry fad?

By analyzing behavior such as cell phone records, two startups have found a way to help those without bank accounts to obtain credit.

The Walt Disney Co.'s board of directors has elected Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey as an independent director.

Square, Google, PayPal and many other mobile payment providers overhauled their technology in 2013. Here's a look at how things changed, on the surface and underneath.

Small Business Payments Company seeks to partner with banks to provide better online tools to small business owners, an area that's been ripe for disruption for years. The product forecasts companies' cash flow, which gives rise to more cross-sale opportunities for banks.

The Bitcoin community has long dealt with wild fluctuations in the digital currency's value, and as the digital currency has surged to several hundred dollars per bitcoin, more consumers and merchants are adopting the digital currency.

As more consumers pile into Bitcoin and the currency's market capitalization increases, any handful of trades will not have as strong an effect on the currency’s price swings.

La Caixa Bank says it will soon launch the largest mobile payment venture in Europe, once again placing the bank at the center of a major European payments initiative.

Oink, which was previously called Virtual Piggy, is ready to expand its youth-oriented online payments business to include merchants with a physical presence.

PayPal has purchased StackMob, which provides a development platform for mobile payments.

As payment companies add more mobile applications to accept transactions and speed processing, authentication will become more complex, says Todd Wilkinson, CEO of Datacard, which plans to bolster its identity technology for government and financial services clients via its acquisition of Entrust.

Branches are outdated, expensive and unwieldy. For years, bankers have postponed dealing with the dead weight. Now it looks like they’re starting to make the necessary hard decisions. Finally.

Many companies are already looking past the mobile phone to find the next high-tech payment device. A few companies are also equipping fashion items with Near Field Communication chips and other technology that can be repurposed by the payments industry.

Some banks have quietly begun testing computers that harness quantum physics to run 100,000 times faster than traditional computers.

Wells Fargo & Co. will link its Visa consumer credit card to the Isis Mobile Wallet in what it calls the "first phase" of an agreement with the payments venture, giving Isis a prominent new supporter shortly after the wallet's nationwide launch.

A California startup is seeking community banks to pilot its transaction analytics service. The startup's grander vision: to also track customers' physical activities and reward them with better interest rates and small business deals as they move more.

The real mobile revolution in opportunity for small business payments is occurring not in consumer wallets, but on the other side of the counter, with disruption in the point of sale terminal market.

Square has purchased Evenly, a company that provides services for person-to-person payments. The move heightens Square's competition with PayPal and bolsters its own Square Cash product.

Square's updated mobile card reader adds a lot of new technology, but its omissions speak volumes about the company's strategy.