Retailers

Westpac in has been aggressive in supporting and adopting emerging merchant and payment technology in Australia.

The chip card migration took up a lot of merchants' energy over the past couple of years. As chip cards mature, merchants can and should turn to the variety of new payment options in the year ahead.

The technology complements Starbucks successful mobile technology, which includes a widely used payments app as well as rewards and order-ahead.

Congress has proposed repealing the Durbin Amendment, a move that would be costly to small businesses which have benefited from the reform.

The third party wallets and mobile point of sale systems are advancing, making the next year the right time for merchants to work on strategies to improve user experience at checkout.

Amazon and other e-commerce disruptors are turning long-held retail models upside down, but in doing so they create a lifeline for retailers who see them as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Target Corp. has demonstrated payments innovation in many ways, including participating in an early pilot of mobile payments with Starbucks, and driving its payments volume to lower-cost debit rails via its Red Card.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. raised its full-year sales forecast after quarterly results beat estimates, as Chinese spending stays strong and the company wrings revenue from fledgling areas such as cloud computing, entertainment and search.

New York-based security company Hypr Corp. is working to use biometric authentication as a glue for the currently fragmented state of mobile and online payments.

Add package pickup to the growing list of things banks are doing with branches as foot traffic declines.