Mobile payments

Deserve wants to deliver credit cards to students and underbanked young adults through a system that underwrites credit without relying on FICO scores and instead by judging the applicants on their future potential.

The U.S. and Canada are far behind Europe and Asia in contactless adoption in general. A handful of mass transit agencies are stirring hopes about NFC fare payments, but even these cities are taking a cautious approach to open-loop payments.

India’s push to build a broad biometrics-based consumer identity database—now 1 billion strong—has been a boon to Paytm and other mobile payments providers leveraging Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the open-architecture structure supported by India’s government.

The biggest innovators in payments aren't necessarily banks, and that's a problem for JPMorgan Chase, which has such a large client base that every startup sees it as a target.

Some credit unions are beginning to offer payment services via wearable technologies, but many say it will take further declines in the pricing of those items before they are widely accepted by consumers or financial institutions.

In recent years, there's been a lot of activity in payments M&A, but a few deals stand out — some for their size, and others for their ability to transform both parties in a fundamental way.

The Wyomissing, Pa.-based firm is forgoing cash offers in favor of a more complicated plan that involves spinning the unit off to shareholders, who will then trade their stakes for shares in a Clearwater, Fla., community bank in a tax-free exchange.

To become a major payments option, the technology has to improve its voice accuracy and handling of voice in different environments.

Appliances, wearables, vehicles and other machines may deliver information directly to a blockchain that would validate personal and device identity.

While many consumers are indeed adding smartphone-driven digital pay and mobile order and pay options into their payments toolbox, cash continues to resonate with American consumers, who show little interest in being "all in" with cashless, or having their choices limited in any way, writes Brian Bailey, managing director of North America for Cardtronics.