Online payments

The country's Federal Reserve banks have made clear that they want to see a much faster nationwide payments system within 10 years. Now comes the hard part: developing a plan to make that happen.

Online bill pay technology developed with small business users in mind is lacking. But new offerings could provide companies with greater functionality, while also helping financial institutions reduce risk and build stronger customer relationships.

Prepaid payment network Blackhawk is offering a selection of electronic gift codes at Coinstar's coin-counting kiosks.

Facebook has deployed a feature called Donate that allows people to contribute directly to nonprofits through the social networking site.

BillTrust will provide access to Open Scan Technologies' Order to Cash (O2C) services in an effort to increase visibility into business payments processing.

Square has purchased Evenly, a company that provides services for person-to-person payments. The move heightens Square's competition with PayPal and bolsters its own Square Cash product.

PayPal has invested in Loop Commerce, which offers a software-based gifting service for retailers.

Adyen has developed encryption software that protects payment data for consumers shopping online through desktop or mobile devices.

Many payments companies are testing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, which has a wider range, and is considered an alternative to, Near Field Communication for executing mobile payments. BLE-based technologies are also being developed for customers to check into stores and for merchants to deliver marketing and loyalty programs. Here are few companies giving BLE and other NFC alternatives a try.

Entertainment and mobile technology company Pimovi has released CamFusion, a mobile app that enables in-app payments for content accessed by wearable computing.

JPMorgan Chase is warning 465,000 holders of prepaid cash cards that their personal information may have been accessed by hackers who attacked the bank's network earlier this year.

China's central bank barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions, moving to regulate the virtual currency after an 89-fold jump in its value sparked a surge of investor interest in the country.

Billing outsourcer BillTrust has developed new invoice technology that uses streamlined processing and dispute resolution to boost businesses payments automation, a segment that has traditionally lagged consumer payments in reducing paper processing.

Clinkle, the payments startup that's generated financial backing from Silicon Valley investors and rampant speculation about its technology model, has hired a pair of Web technology veterans as it ramps up for a launch next year.

Several Canadian banks have taken on the challenge of managing and protecting their customers' usernames and passwords across banking and government sites. U.S. banks are invited to join a similar pilot starting in the U.S.

While Bitcoin sometimes gets a bad rap with law enforcement officials, the police chief of Vicco, Ky. will begin getting his salary in the digital currency.

CO-OP Financial Services is upgrading its Sprig digital wallet to allow broader person-to-person payments, and is also adding mobile credit and debit card control and alert features.

Mobile technology builder C-Sam has created a version of its mobile app development platform that's preconfigured with MasterPass specifications for financial institutions and processors to more easily build custom versions of MasterCard's digital wallet.

Google Wallet has undergone several major revisions since it launched and while the issues solved with its latest iteration were among its biggest hurdles, it's still too soon to declare a winner in the mobile wallet race.

If retail stores seemed a little less crowded over the holiday weekend, tablets or smartphones are likely to blame, as the volume of e-commerce payments made via mobile devices surged during what some are now calling the "Cyber Five" shopping days — from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.