Who is Microsoft Wallet for? With just 1.6% of the U.S. smartphone market as of January, it's unlikely that even Microsoft believes Windows Phone users are a huge untapped audience for mobile payments.

Most would agree the way digital identity is managed is suboptimal. But how identity should be managed, and who should manage it, are shaping up to be hotly debated questions.

Bank of America is betting on consumers’ future intentions over their current actions when it comes to building its digital wallet strategy.

With 63% of all data breaches resulting from stolen, weak or default passwords, and recent compromises targeting millions of stored passwords, Fast Identity Online Alliance members say the time is now for device manufacturers and e-commerce merchants to embrace new authorization technology.

One of the supposed perks of EMV chip-card upgrades was that the process would enable more modern payment options such as mobile wallets. In practice, however, EMV is closing as many doors as it opens.

I’d like to suggest there is one more bubble which has yet to be called out, but is nevertheless pretty obvious to a handful of payments professionals who don’t practice the art of denial or are not paid to cover up the obvious symptoms. It’s the payments bubble.

For the first time, the Fed this year is requiring banks subject to stress tests to show how they would cope with the possibility of rates dipping into negative territory. Analysts say they will be keeping close watch on custody banks, asset-sensitive regionals and banks with little overseas exposure.

The British giant is making fintech startups its allies as it builds a virtual bank tailored to the needs "of the people at the bottom of the pyramid."

Following a similar move from Visa last week, MasterCard is streamlining EMV certification and will adjust its fraud-cost policy for non-EMV compatible merchants.

While iris and fingerprint biometric security technologies have proven to be effective, Gesa Credit Union is quite literally asking members for a hand to help improve security even more with its palm-vein biometric reader pilot program.

Four state-run banks in Thailand and 15 corporations will soon begin registering for PromptPay, formerly known as the AnyID scheme, a national payments platform that will allow users to send money with only their national ID or mobile phone number.

Changing the rules in the middle of the game. Rescuing the investors who took big risks at the expense of those who behaved prudently. Undermining the credibility of the system.

The term real-time payments is a slight misnomer. It focuses the industry and the market on the outcome instead of the input.

As sexy as decentralized systems and automation are these days, human involvement is still necessary in many areas.

Private-equity firm GTCR is set to acquire Optimal Blue, a Texas-based mortgage tech firm, and it is planning more deals that would offer the industry ways to strip out further costs.

Robard Williams, senior vice president with Moody's, discusses how the explosion of fintech companies – 4,000 by his firm's count – will help banks adapt to a digital world.

By teaming up, community banks are hoping they'll be able to get some leverage in hammering out tech agreements with megavendors such as FIS, Fiserv and Jack Henry.

Finland’s Bank of Aland is partnering with Gemalto to give customers bio-friendly payment cards that calculate their carbon footprints.

Facebook is poking its fingers into a lot of seemingly unrelated businesses, but commerce is always at the heart of its efforts. Here are some ways Facebook is building a new foundation for payments.

Many of the major mergers and acquisitions in the payments industry the past few years have had an underlying goal -- improve chances to make a splash in retail omnichannel payments.