Using good, old-fashioned customer service and consultation to cut down on merchant attrition has been part of the acquiring playbook for years. But that playbook is long overdue for an update.

A bot-powered wave is on the way, and some firms will adapt, others will simply perish. It will be survival of the fittest, writes Beerud Sheth, founder and CEO of Gupshup.

The latest class of the Commerce.Innovated accelerator program run by Silicon Valley Bank and First Data demonstrates a focus on changing industries in addition to streamlining how people pay.

The Consumer Financial Data Rights group, representing aggregators and fintechs, says banks still aren’t forking over enough customer data. The group is meeting with bank regulators and trying to get consumers to petition regulators on its behalf.

The breadth and pace of change across banking and the rest of the business world is rapidly escalating, posing challenges for financial institutions and the economy alike, according to Robert Kaplan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

More than a dozen credit unions have converted to Fiserv's services this year.

KeyBank is the latest to join the robo-adviser trend. Its investment services unit just announced a partnership with Jemstep, which is eager to do more such deals with banks now that it is owned by Invesco.

Connected devices, mobile and new processing standards require a larger technology upgrade than the quick updates of the past, according to Rajesh Venkatraman, director of worldwide payments at IBM.

Chatbots are the next big thing in payments. But a poor in-chat commerce strategy can turn off consumers and create bad user experiences.

When Apple or Google releases a new version of its operating system, banks are forced to respond by updating their mobile apps—running just to stay in place. Next month's release from Apple is especially challenging.

Collaboration will help make up for cost concerns from adopting the technology and ensure that the core vendors get the message of community banks’ interest.

An encrypted website and secure network aren’t very helpful when customers have been unknowingly routed to a criminal’s lookalike site, writes Simon Thorpe, director of product for Authy at Twilio.

The Dodd-Frank Act’s Volcker Rule was meant to protect the financial system, but it is also stopping community banks from investing in funds focusing on fintech.

Partners FCU’s ‘Decision Summary Dashboard’ was the winner in this year’s Analytics Best Practices Competition from OnApproarch

The $2.6 trillion-asset bank's recent commitment to digital lending augurs the development of a two-tier market for borrowers who want fast access to cash.

Even as investors are lured by their price gains and volatility, the biggest institutions are reluctant to get in, raising further concerns about liquidity.

With this year's iPhone announcement getting closer, more rumors are spreading about how Apple plans to overhaul the way its phones handle payments. Some of these have already been confirmed by Apple; others are leaking in code the company has released.

Security companies are using technology to stop more complex fraud based on a smaller amount of data, and investors are taking notice.

JPMorgan CEO Dimon says banks are putting Silicon Valley to shame … in terms of diversity; Uber’s plan to replace its CEO with a woman seems to be sputtering; and Yellen’s potential successors also are all men.

The business world has been seeking the benefits of distributed ledgers but worries about security, control, privacy, performance and other issues. Microsoft says its new Coco framework will solve all these and more.