Mobile payments

Most mobile wallets clearly favor one industry over another, with banks and retailers often pitted against each other in a battle over payment card fees. JPMorgan Chase just made a stunning move by conceding some of this ground to the benefit of the Merchant Customer Exchange.

The bank owners of the clearXchange payments network and the Early Warning risk management service hope that by combining the two programs, they can remain in control of technologies that will become core to mobile commerce.

In responding to advancements in digital payments and consumer tech-savviness, Western Union has launched WU Connect to link its global money transfer services to messaging and social media platforms.

Nok Nok Labs has expanded its suite of payment authentication services for the Fast IDentity Online Alliance infrastructure, adding one-touch biometrics, out-of-band authentication and measures to address friendly fraud.

The best time to get someone to buy something is when they're actually discussing buying it, according to Teamchat CEO Beerud Sheth.

From mobile wallets to machine learning, from biometrics to Bitcoin, many examples of what the industry calls "emerging technology" have finally emerged. But change is happening slowly, as is usual in the complex financial services space.

Visa has introduced Visa Checkout, its online and digital wallet service, to Brazil.

Apple Pay debuted last year as an enabler for many banks that were itching to get involved with mobile payments. But a few banks were able to leap ahead of Apple Pay with their own technology.

Bluetooth beacons are gradually appearing in more stores, and some experts predict their use will grow more rapidly once the devices establish a strong link to payments and other vital retail systems.

The combination of location-based marketing and mobile wallets is relatively new territory for merchants and consumers, bringing these two parties so close together that they may start to overlap.