Like many payments executives, Martin Ferenczi believes the U.S. payments market will not meet the card network-imposed October 2015 target for migration to chip-based EMV technology.

Overstock.com plans to offer faster payouts to vendors and larger bonuses to employees to encourage bitcoin payments.

The telco-operated Isis mobile payments initiative plans to rebrand to avoid carrying the same name as a Middle Eastern militant group referred to as "ISIS" by western journalists.

A recent GAO report called for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be involved in interagency discussions about virtual currencies, but others say the bureau's jurisdiction is murky, technology may move too fast for consumer rulemaking and too much regulation too early could kill innovation.

London has ended cash payments for city buses, leaving the transit system's Oyster and other contactless cards as the methods to pay fares.

Seamless' international expansion plans have gotten a boost via a deal with the Finnish sporting goods chain store Top-Sport.

Merchants are wary of the proprietary look and feel of the process by which the card networks and issuers are adopting new security standards.

Whether you call them digital or virtual currencies, you’re aware of Bitcoin, Litecoin and the thousands of other decentralized currencies created by algorithms.

Bindo wants to combine its cloud-based iPad point of sale product with an online marketplace, similar to how Square's iPad system links merchants to Square Marketplace. This hybrid approach is meant to make Bindo more appealing to local merchants.

Barclays has experimented with a number of mobile, wearable and online payment systems in its quest to bring its payment offerings into the modern age. Through its tests and live deployments of new technology around the world, the London-based issuer has learned how to entice consumers to move beyond plastic cards.

Capital One has snatched a designer from Google's touted advanced technology and projects team to help boost the bank's mobile commerce and payments technology development.

CaixaBank has started offering a wristband that can make contactless Visa payments at more than 300,000 businesses across Spain.

In the banking world, branches came first and ATMs came later to streamline the experience. But in the Bitcoin world, ATMs came first with limited features, and the ATM makers are working hard to add the sort of services that one might find in a mainstream bank branch.

Yapital, a payment technology company based in Luxembourg, is testing a feature that will allow consumers to authorize payments with their fingerprints. The technology is aimed replacing PINs that consumers use to authorize purchases though the Yapital app.

Facebook has expanded its relationship with payments provider Braintree, which is part of eBay's PayPal, to power a program for mobile application developers.

SCVNGR's LevelUp mobile wallet has updated its Android app to support Android Wear, making LevelUp one of the first payment companies to support Google's smartwatch platform.

Throughout Europe and Asia in particular, ATMs are being used to distribute an increasingly wide array of financial and non-financial products and services. This is in sharp contrast to the U.S., where most advanced ATMs offer the same set of banking-related features.

Virtual credit cards, which have struggled with adoption in other regions, are picking up steam in India as a means to combat online fraud.

JCB plans to expand its current J/Speedy contactless card technology to allow Japanese consumers to make cross-border payments with EMV-chip cards or through smartphones and wearable devices.

Newegg's recent acceptance of Bitcoin is just the latest of the online electronics retailer's many digital payment options. Its tech-savvy audience demands digital currency and digital wallets, and accommodating these needs is critical to Newegg's expansion into new markets.