West African fraudsters have been identified as the actors behind a worldwide email scam in which more than $60 million has been stolen from small and midsize businesses and their financial institutions.

The transactions look so ordinary that most banks' fraud filters aren't able to detect them. And the perpetrators aren't typical hackers — they are middle-aged churchgoers who believe they are taking back what's rightfully theirs.

Overall card fraud losses in Europe have declined slightly over the last five years, but that trend is starting to reverse course, based on new data from FICO and Euromonitor International that points to sharp regional upticks in card-not-present fraud.

It may seem as if the Visa Direct payments platform came out of the blue this week as part of its collaboration with the bank-run clearXchange network, but the card brand has used the same technology in other countries for more than a decade.

Bank of America Corp., which spends about $1 billion a year handling cash, will save money and require fewer employees as more customers make payments electronically, Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said.

In the wake of the Bitfinex heist, protecting consumers must again be at the forefront of the digital currency community.

To thrive in today’s internationally volatile markets, financial institutions and other organizations must attend more closely to the cross-border payments process.

The nomadic nature of renters creates a lot of friction for companies that match apartment-seekers with available housing. But a California startup says it's beating that problem with a payments solution that asks neither renters nor landlords to change their habits.

Cash has been notoriously stubborn in light of the relentless onslaught of new payment methods, and though it has started a very slow decline, it is perhaps decades away from declaring defeat.

The tough move from free to fee for its readers has Square adjusting its strategy to lure merchants, but it also opens the door wider to new markets, according to CEO Jack Dorsey.

The situation turns on whether the CFTC inadvertently pushed Bitfinex to adopt a weaker security system than it had been using. However, the way the bitcoin exchange used the new system was significantly flawed, security experts said.

Samsung’s newest handset enables users to authenticate mobile payments by gazing at the screen, in the latest expansion of biometric security for smartphones.

While Early Warning is continuing to recruit banks to participate in its risk management engine and clearXchange P-to-P network, it's also working with nonbanks to quickly expand its footprint.

Bots have slowly begun to creep onto the online payments scene, and they could offer a whole new, simpler way to part with our cash.

At its launch in 2004, ThankYou had its own separate identity, customer base and website from the rest of Citi – even logging into the program was difficult.

Bots have slowly begun to creep onto the online payments scene, and they could offer a whole new, simpler way to part with our cash.

As digital wallet strategies begin to fall into place for more large banks, many smaller banks are feeling the pressure to develop apps of their own.

Barclays threw out security questions for telephone banking access this week and began using voice recognition technology, representing a step in an industry-wide move to eliminate passwords and challenge questions.

TouchID, facial recognition, behavior patterns, knowledge-based authentication, SMS codes – the means of authenticating continue to proliferate. The smart minds in security have yet to settle on one which is the most effective.

Prague-based CSOB has launched the first mobile wallet for Near Field Communication-based mobile payments in the Czech Republic—already a bastion of contactless payments—with plans for e-commerce payments down the road.