It isn't just payday lenders and money-services firms that are being ditched by banks lately. Other banks are getting cut off too.

2014 was a big year for the mobile payments industry with Apple Pay diving into mobile wallets, and Starbucks and other retailers gaining traction with apps that combine loyalty and engagement programs with mobile payments.

Square is committed to its diversification strategy, furthering its transformation from a simple mobile point of sale provider to a company that also handles small-business loans, marketing and e-commerce.

One of the challenges WePay faces in handling fundraising payments is the lack of visibility into when a given fundraising event will result in a spike of payment volume that is beyond what the vendor can typically handle.

Imagine a future where we access accounts or pay for groceries using a bracelet, a wristwatch or even a temporary tattoo. Disney's MagicBand provides a glimpse of what's possible for wearable devices.

• Cool Wearable Devices to Try Out
• How Many Wearable Devices Are There?

Faster lending, mobile app enhancements and seamless channel hopping are all priorities top bank tech executives have for the new year.

It has been nearly a year since the Target breach has tuned the world into what fraud managers have been dealing with for years.

2014 was a big year for payments. Disruption came from within the financial services industry and from outsiders like Apple and Walmart. Mainstream payment companies had to respond to these new competitors as well as adapt to fresh attention from regulators and fraudsters.

For more than a year, hackers have found easy pickings at large retailers: 110 million records stolen from Target; 1.6 million from Staples; 56 million from Home Depot; 45.6 million from TJ Maxx; the list goes on.

Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio, has announced plans to support Apple Pay.

A Canadian startup says it will enable customers to swap their holdings between gold bullion and bitcoins, and it plans an initial public offering next year.

Leading financial services and tech execs say that in 2015, technology will change many things, from the way they hire personnel to the way they make loans to the way they package products. Upcoming projects — ranging from small to big — will improve the customer experience at a time when the lines between banks and technology companies continue to blur.

There is no doubt Visa, MasterCard and indeed many of their member banks will initially lose revenues as the new Russian card system takes some of the fees normally earned by them.

As computing devices get closer to the body and more Internet-connected, payment platforms will have to be flexible enough to work in a vast number of environments, according to PayPal's Joel Yarbrough.

In its first year of heavy involvement in testing and certifying payment security technology, scientists at Underwriters Laboratories have determined that tokenization should be a significant piece of a strong security "triangle."

The payment processor Stripe Inc. is one of the key parties enabling the Sony film The Interview to be rented and purchased online after it was pulled from theaters following terroristic threats.

The point of sale technology provider TouchBistro is partnering with Uber to provide free transportation service to restaurant patrons in Toronto.

By now many of you have probably seen the reports of somewhat disappointing Black Friday turnout from the National Retail Federation.

A technology called "host card emulation" made a big splash when it became part of the Android operating system in late 2013, but 2014 marked the year in which the tech became a foundation for future mobile wallet development.

Late last week, hackers took down Payza's blog and posted a mocking message in its place, implying that they were sitting on a treasure trove of stolen data. Payza says this was merely a hacker's stunt, and that no data of real value could have been compromised, but the company must still deal with the event's damage to its brand.