Mobile payments

New designs and easier authentication can boost adoption, says Fingerprints' Thomas Rex

For banks and other financial institutions to survive and thrive in the age of mobile payments and e-commerce, they need to continue to enhance their mobile apps with more innovations, tighter security features, and more time-saving capabilities, says Informa Financial Intelligence's Gina DeCorla.

The city would join San Francisco and Philadelphia among cities that prohibit stores and restaurants from only accepting electronic payments.

Even in mature markets, consumers may not feel very connected to their payment cards. This is making issuers more reliant on selling data-driven experiences over simple transaction processing.

The future of brick and mortar retail is somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. Buried beneath a virtual sea in a place once called Xanadu is an underwater version of New York, a nautical Times Square where marquees scream “Piranha of the Opera,” and “Krill Grill.”

By experimenting with palm-print hand wave transactions, Amazon is putting its resources behind another work-in-progress technology that traditional retailers will almost certainly have to invest in just to keep pace.

French mobile payments app Lydia has raised €40 million (about $45 million) in a Series B fundraising round led by Tencent Holdings, owner of WeChat Pay.

Having grown up with smartphones in hand, these digital natives crave high speed and instant results, says Wirecard's Susanne Steidl.

Fearful of being the last one standing, banks and credit unions of all sizes will become more aggressive about real-time payments — or risk getting left in the past.

The new Karma Points card donates 10% of revenue to charitable funds established by the company that help people living on the street.