How can those charged with making business decisions for their cooperatives keep up with the swiftly-changing needs of their members? Simple — they ditch the gut, dig into the data.

Cloud-based wallets, QR code wallets and other software-based wallets seem to be shoving Near Field Communication hardware out of the spotlight. But reports of the death of NFC, which enables contactless payments from many mobile devices, have been greatly exaggerated.

Following the lead of other retailers, the National Retail Federation filed an appeal Jan. 2 of a U.S. District Court ruling to approve the years-long class action against the card brands that resulted in a $5.7 billion swipe-fee settlement.

Sandra Braunstein, the director of the Federal Reserve Board's division of consumer and community affairs, plans to retire on April 1, the agency announced Jan. 3.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and other companies have seen more than $200 million in sales in 2013 for computing components used to create Bitcoins, Wedbush Securities Inc. said.

DoubleBeam, a white-label payments provider, has started the New Year working to fix a bug that crashed the reporting server used by GoPago, which DoubleBeam purchased last month.

E-commerce technology provider Shopify has launched a redesigned version of its iOS mobile app, adding features designed to enable store management and mobile payments.

While most gift cards are still made of plastic, digital cards are increasing in popularity among consumers because of the many options to customize the cards.

Chirpify founder and CEO Chris Teso's five o'clock shadow and plaid shirt identify him as one of the new breed of payments entrepreneurs. His advice to newcomers: be fearless.

Under Fincen's March 2013 guidance, companies that transmit virtual currency must register as money services businesses. De Castro was unsure whether his investment company would be treated the same way. According to the letter from Fincen, its rules are not meant to apply to De Castro's business.

Alabama State Employees Credit Union has filed the first class action by a financial services company against Target Corp. over costs from the massive card security data breach.

Google will discontinue Bump and Flock, two file-sharing apps Google acquired when it purchased Bump Technologies last year.

Melissa Smith has officially taken on the role of CEO of corporate payments technology provider Wex, replacing Michael E. Dubyak, the previous chairman and CEO, who becomes the executive chairman of the board through the end of 2014.

The dramatic rise in student loan volume is a worrisome trend for policymakers, but perhaps a more troubling one for banks is a big spike in write-offs.

As more payments companies seek the next big thing, they are finding that mobile payments tech is due for a makeover, and a lot more attention surrounds digital currency such as Bitcoin.

The Coinstar brand has long been associated with spare change, but for Blackhawk it's the key to a diversified strategy for prepaid products and a catalyst for mobile wallet adoption.

From a consumer's perspective, the Merchant Customer Exchange mobile payment initiative ended 2013 in much the same way as it ended 2012 - with many big-name merchants signed on, but no product available to make payments in stores. Behind the scenes, MCX has made greater strides.

Accretive Health Inc., a company that provides medical billing and revenue management services to hospitals around the country, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that its inadequate data security measures unfairly exposed sensitive consumer information to the risk of theft or misuse.

The December poll hosted on the National Foundation for Credit Counseling Web site revealed that more than half of the respondents, 56 percent, predicted they would be in a better place financially at this time next year.

As the impact of Target's data breach continues to widen, credit unions have been more responsive than banks when it comes to issuing new cards, according to two recent online surveys.