Payment processing

When cutting through the noise generated by the highs and lows of cryptocurrency value, the underlying blockchain technology is poised to keep advancing toward mainstream payments.

The Silicon Valley-based fintech, which recently announced a new partnership with Walmart, plans to add hundreds of new workers this year.

With many consumers now using online and mobile banking, there is a huge opportunity to incorporate blockchain solutions into the everyday payments experience, writes Andre Stoorvogel, director of product marketing for Rambus Payments.

FIS’s $43 billion agreement to acquire Worldpay and Fiserv’s $22 billion deal to buy First Data are largely closing the gaps between financial technology and merchant acquiring. But these mergers are only the first of many steps.

Existing bank systems are holding issuers back from responding fast enough to changing market conditions, contends Mikko Rieger, senior vice president of consumer management services for Nets.

Banks of all sizes need to stick together to ward off threats from "unregulated" fintechs and other nonbanks, Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said Tuesday.

As the faster-payments movement gradually increases the speed of transfers, the use cases for immediate debit push payments are becoming more specialized.

Randal Quarles, a senior Fed official and chair of the Financial Stability Board, sparked debate with a speech about the risks and rewards of companies like Amazon, Facebook and Apple entering the financial system.

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.