Mobile payments

China's rapid urbanization is causing a payments technology gap between the city and country, leading the government to issue a plan to bring digital payments in small towns and rural areas, a move that should also boost volume for Ant and Tencent's payments businesses.

Consumers are expressing an ever-increasing interest in making digital Person-to-Person payments to friends, families and even businesses for bills, shared expenses or temporary loans. Digital P2P payments are quickly beginning to displace other payment forms such as cash and checks due to their convenience and growing ubiquity.

Furniture retailers typically split payment for big-ticket items with a deposit and the balance due upon delivery, but the process is usually fraught with paperwork, security and efficiency gaps.

In the tug-of-war over merchants refusing either cash or cards embroiling local governments in New Jersey, New York City and Philadelphia, the Iowa State Fair is taking the middle ground. Beginning next year, all fair vendors will be required to accept cash, cards and contactless payments through First Data’s Clover devices.

Alipay is a force to be reckoned with outside of China, but it has taken a strategic approach to foreign markets that downplays its potential as a threat to local payment systems.

Ant Financial, the Chinese payments company that operates Alipay, has a scale that’s almost unimaginable to a U.S. audience. But the giant's ability to build a true empire has already run into regulatory trouble in the U.S.—and it’s affecting Ant's strategy worldwide.

Walgreens is expanding its payment options to include Alipay, Ant Financial’s mobile wallet, at most of its U.S. stores.

Pentagon Federal Credit Union, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citigroup and a handful of others have pumped more than 100 million contactless credit and debit cards altogether into the U.S. market recently, but it’s a drop in the bucket in the world’s largest card market.

The quest to implement a broadly accepted digital ID solution may take years, but Jumio is hoping to get headway with a new authentication service leveraging video selfies.

The future of payment is already drastically affecting the retail industry. While retailers will need to adapt their digital strategy yet again, this shift in consumer trends presents yet another opportunity for success, Steve Davidson, vice president of warranty products for Fortegra.