The nation's Federal Reserve Banks have kicked off a multi-year process aimed at speeding up our often painfully slow payment system. Earlier this month, a Fed task force on the issue elected a steering committee that will play a key role in defining a path forward. The 19 members on the steering committee represent various parts of the payments ecosystem, including banking giants, corporations like Walmart that are large users of the payment system, and payment innovators like Dwolla and Ripple Labs. Here's a look at 13 of them.

PayPal has added new features to its invoicing product in a market filled with rivals that are similarly diversifying their services to lure small businesses.

Even though it is still the very early days of mobile payment wearables, consumer use of the devices is poised to reach a transaction volume at $501.1 billion by 2020.

MasterCard and Citibank India have launched what they claim is the first global digital wallet service in India.

Max Levchin, founder and chief executive of point of sale credit startup Affirm and co-founder of PayPal, has resigned from his position as chairman of Yelp's board.

MasterCard is cooperating with a European investigation into its fees, though it is questionable that this process will have a widespread effect on interchange, according to MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga.

Studies find people aged 35 and younger have a negative savings rate. USAA tries to combat that trend.

MasterCard Inc., the second-largest payments network, said profit fell 1.1 percent as expenses rose and a strengthening U.S. dollar hurt earnings overseas. Shares declined in early trading.

More than a third of small-business owners won't accept EMV chip cards by Oct. 1 — and don't plan to do so any time in the future – but they may change their minds if the decision costs them as little as $100 in fraud losses.

While tokenization does represent progress, it is important to consider whether tokenization is, in fact, enough to secure online payments. There are some vulnerabilities, and as cyber thieves grow more sophisticated, companies will have to continue to innovate better security solutions, as well as ensure the ones that are on the market are being used as effectively as possible.

PayPal this week released new research predicting a robust market in China for U.S. retailers, a bullish outlook that’s not being tempered by the vast selloffs in the Chinese financial markets.

Bank regulators are likely to take further action to force banks to upgrade their cybersecurity processes as hackers continue to find ways to penetrate institutions’ defenses, Benjamin Lawsky, the top former New York bank supervisor, said Tuesday.

USAA's newest app, Savings Coach, analyzes financial data to recommend small amounts of money to save and invites members to take savings challenges, then moves the money upon the member's approval. The app comes at a time when millennials have a negative savings rate.

Blockchain technology can be used to help financial-services institutions accomplish their most important goal — improving customer service, Blythe Masters said Tuesday.

Visa is partnering with and investing in Stripe, fueling the processing startup's international ambitions and product development while giving the card network added juice to build new technology.

First Data Corp. plans to start hearing banker pitches this week for an initial public offering that could be the year's biggest, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the years ahead, look for projects that leverage the Bitcoin network to greatly expand mainstream banking infrastructure's reach into new markets — particularly those in volatile economies.

As the credit union-led mobile platform works hard to attract small-business support by drawing on the local ethos that the community has nurtured for years, it faces a formidable challenge from device makers such as Apple and Samsung as they bake their own wallets into the hardware.

Commerce Bancshares Kansas City, Mo., has found its customers want to save the planet, but don't want to put in too much effort, so the issuer partnered with Sustain:Green for cards that offset carbon emissions.

There's a classic approach behind many of the retail cyberattacks that make the news: Backoff malware, which “sniffs” the traffic that flows on a network to identify and steal credit card data passed between point of sale (POS) terminals.