Payment processing

The FIS-Worldpay and Fiserv-First Data combos do provide notable scale, but the even-larger companies still won't produce the same pace of growth that younger nimble fintechs enjoy, says Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Restaurant point of sale and back-office management provider Toast raised $250 million in a Series E funding round, valuing the company at $2.7 billion, and is adding David Yuan from TCV to its board of directors.

While banks are oftentimes simply too big to react to this consumer change quickly, more agile fintechs have been much faster to prioritize mobile-first POS financing, argues Nufar Segal, general manager of consumer financing at Jifiti.

By learning from the struggles that resulted from Wells Fargo’s outages, the rest of the financial world can improve its own disaster recovery plans, writes Todd Matters, chief architect and co-founder of RackWare.

The Clearing House announced moves to attract community banks and credit unions to its real-time payments system. Smaller depositories have generally been reluctant to sign up with what is seen as a large-bank effort.

Seeking a way to help its employed shoppers manage their money, the Instacart grocery payments and delivery service is partnering with e-commerce payments provider Stripe to offer an Instant Cashout option.

As more national banks leave smaller communities and focus on large customers, fintechs are creating an "Uber effect" with an easier experience. Small businesses are increasingly looking to borrow money and fund their growth initiatives, and need a partner who can deliver, argues William Phelan, president of PayNet.

Digital payment innovators have shown an almost limitless propensity to home in on banks’ turf, and Citigroup is ready to strike back.

Mainstream firms are joining the push to let cannabis firms use banks; the companies say they can help banks make lending decisions quicker.

The scope of customer experience spans multiple products and services that comprise the merchant technology and payment service ecosystems, according to Paul Perry, a contributor for the technology company Relay.