P-to-P payments

Mobeewave combined two Canadian staples — hockey and contactless payments — to test a technology that allows smartphones to pay 'each other,' and is now taking the concept on the road to other markets.

PayPal has completed its purchase of Xoom in an $890 million stock deal, the San Jose-based online payment company announced Nov. 12.

Apple is reportedly going to its bank partners with a pitch to tie in their scale to jump-start an Apple-branded person-to-person payment system.

Even with the prevalence of mobile P2P apps like Venmo and Square Cash, consumers still turn to cash, checks and PayPal most often to pay one another.

In what could be seen as another salvo in the battle between payments and financial services 'disruptors' and more traditional financial institutions, five large technology companies — Google, Amazon, Apple, PayPal and Intuit — have formed a lobbying and advocacy group.

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.

Mobile person-to-person payment systems are poised to grow to about 126 million adult users by 2020 with nearly 60% of all mobile device owners using the service, according to newly published data from Javelin Strategy & Research.

The payments industry's next big challenge may be to get out of its own way and allow innovation to unfold in an open and collaborative manner.

The Faster Payments System in the U.K. and the New Payments Platform in Australia serve as excellent models to emulate, but it is not likely that the U.S. can create similar systems.

PayPal is targeting what it estimates to be a $51 billion global market for small debts owed between friends and family members, enabling consumers to set up their own URL to collect payments.