P-to-P payments

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.

Switzerland's Migros is the country's largest retailer and employer, as well as the owner of a prominent local bank, giving the company an unconventional perspective on the costs and benefits of mobile payments.

JPMorgan Chase is now live on clearXchange, a multi-bank person-to-person transfer network that it helped found in 2011, but the competitive landscape for P2P has changed a lot in the intervening years.

Papa John's is integrating its mobile and online checkout process with Venmo, a PayPal-owned system that fuses mobile and social networking to enable person to person payments.

The design of Square Cash's new "$Cashtag" system may seem like a cutesy move to appeal to more consumers, but the underlying changes to the app show that Square's new focus is all business.

The London-based peer-to-peer money mover TransferWise Ltd. opened an office in New York this month, proclaiming plans to disrupt the U.S. market. But in reality, it could be more an ally than a threat to U.S. financial services companies.

As the Federal Reserve and other entities push toward developing a faster payments system in the U.S., it has become increasingly apparent that a good place to start is through debit networks.

MyECheck has reached an agreement to buy the electronic payment software platform developer Seergate.

As their financial lives have become more digital, consumers have embraced technology like online bill pay and mobile check deposit.

Person-to-person payment services haven't always fared well, but a year-old French startup, Flooz, thinks a P2P app can succeed in its home country if it has the right interface — and steep social barrier to entry.

The field of P2P competitors has grown significantly since JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo founded clearXchange LLC in 2011, and the mega-banks' initiative still looks very much like it did three years ago.

Snapchat, a photo-based messaging service, has added a payment capability based on Square Cash, Square Inc.'s person-to-person payment system.

Venmo, a mobile person-to-person payment system now owned by PayPal, rocketed in popularity with millennials by treating money movement as a type of social interaction.

Amazon plans to discontinue WebPay, a service that allows people to send cash to each other.

Square Cash, a person-to-person payment service Square launched in October 2013, has been redesigned to become more useful as an app-based product.

Fiserv Inc. is promoting the real-time version Popmoney person-to-person payment service as a companion to its online bill payment offering.

Bank of America Corp. plans to allow new transaction types, such as corporate disbursements, to be made through the bank-led clearXchange person-to-person payments network.