Mobile payments

Huawei Pay hopes to benefit from UnionPay's network and scale as it launches in Singapore, a market that already has several large mobile pay apps including Apple Pay.

Analytical technology will be key for firms looking to appeal to the next generation of customers. Having come of age in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, secure personal finance is extremely important to this generation, says Axis Communications' Stephen Joseph.

While much of the world is sheltering at home to deter the spread of coronavirus, there's still a need for essential workers to travel — and an opportunity for the development of in-car payments technology, which could allow consumers to pay for gas or food without handling cash or other potentially infected surfaces.

Former NetSpend CEO Dan Henry has been named as the CEO of Green Dot, the Pasadena, Calif.-based prepaid card issuer and banking company.

By embracing technology such as magnetic stripe when it seemed modern, the U.S. has been slower to catch up with much newer digital innovation, argues MSTS' Brandon Spear.

As coronavirus forces most shopping to occur online, merchants will likely see their product return policies tested by both good customers and the unsavory ones who abuse those policies for profit.

Taking the time to consider which technology to adopt for the new, expanded organization can be a critical success factor in the long run, says Bottomline Technologies' Jessica Cheney.

Cash use will suffer because of this outbreak, and there are factors other than germs contributing to this trend. A growing work-from-home workforce will funnel more shoppers into digital channels, including ones they may have never tried before.

The Amazon effect in financial services will be much bigger than the one experienced by the retail industry—it will have a deeper impact due to the financial services industry being bigger and more vulnerable, and because consumers are now more comfortable with change, says TigerGraph's Todd Blaschka.

Just two months after UnionPay bolstered its support of QR code payments in China through an arrangement with Tencent Holdings Ltd., the company is working with Network International to initiate its first pilot for QR code payments at a merchant location in the UAE.