P-to-P payments

The banks that launched the clearXchange P-to-P network two years ago sensed the urgency to get solid footing in the consumer payments market, but its mission rapidly expanded.

Putting bank venture clearXchange's push for real-time person-to-person payments in motion, U.S. Bank says it is one of the first to make the service available to its customers.

Square Cash has changed a lot since it was introduced as an almost purely email-based person-to-person payments service in 2013, but the addition of its Cash Drawer feature is perhaps the biggest game-changer.

They are barely out of college, but this young generation of consumers has already shortened payment technology cycles, forced virtual currency into the mainstream, and left processors scrambling to stay relevant.

The app ecosystem has enabled payments to blend almost invisibly into the background of many cash-based services, such as ride-sharing and food delivery, but sometimes there is a need to let payments take center stage.

A consortium of Swiss banks hope the country's reputation for banking, technology and smartphones will give its financial institutions a commanding position for in-store and in-app payments.

For the first time in its nearly 60-year history, Visa is inviting third-party software developers onto its network with the goal of advancing digital commerce.

Fintech companies are threatening banks on many fronts, but it is in peer-to-peer payments that banks may be most at risk of being reduced to "dumb pipes."

There have been many reports of bitcoin's demise, but the fate of one currency doesn't eliminate the many use cases that virtual currency could still address in payments, according to Evan Duffield, a Phoenix-based developer and founder of the virtual currency Dash.

Person-to-person payments are a sudden hotbed of innovation. Many banks and technology companies are rethinking their approach to P2P and finding ways to offer the service in a way that is genuinely appealing to the mobile generation.

New patents provide a glimpse into how Apple Inc. plans to personalize the payments experience by harnessing Apple’s iMessage channel, bringing it in line with message-based P2P services from Venmo, Facebook, Google and others.

In an effort to expand its digital banking platform, 1st Advantage Federal Credit Union added Fiserv's Mobiliti mobile banking, Popmoney person-to-person payments and remote deposit capture.

Google Wallet was seemingly sidelined this year when Android Pay replaced it as Google’s flagship mobile payments app, but a recent update to the Wallet app shows that Google still sees potential in the aging brand.

The uncertain state of the prepaid card market doesn’t faze Texas entrepreneur Houston Frost, who has relaunched the Akimbo prepaid card, a concept he’s championed since 2011.

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.