Distributed ledgers are slowly but steadily working their way into mainstream financial applications. That means the time has come to understand how blockchain works—and to take the technology more seriously, says Esther Pigg. Despite all the hype surrounding it, blockchain—or “distributed-ledger technology” (DLT)—remains a complicated mystery to many. Here is …

At the end of July came an opening for nonbank payments players that, as the old expression goes, you could drive a Mack truck through. And it’s our guess that we’ll be hearing much more about this opening—and about how financial-technology firms and other nonbanks are exploiting it—for quite some …

Will Square Inc. apply for a national banking charter, now that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has opened the door to financial-technology firms? As of late Wednesday, the answer remains unclear. “We’re really well-positioned to broaden access to the financial system, which is our core purpose,” said …

Financial technology firms, many of which command significant positions in the payments business, can now apply to become national banks. Moving on a proposal it’s had under consideration for months, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced on Tuesday it will begin accepting bank-charter applications from fintech firms. …

Canadian fintech Mobeewave could see its contactless-payment service for Samsung smart phones expand thanks to a new agreement with National Bank of Canada. And this week a British financial trade group announced that contactless payments in the United Kingdom jumped 97% in 2017. Dubbed National Bank Easy Pay, the service …

Dutch payments processor Adyen N.V. is in the limelight just as the payments business has gotten hot. Ant Financial just raised the biggest private funding round ever—$14 billion at a $150 billion valuation, in part on the back of its Alipay unit. These are new and nontraditional entrants. The old …

Prepaid card payments provider InComm announced it has acquired Gift Card Impressions, a provider of gift card packaging and solutions. Terms were not announced. Payments processor Adyen announced a direct application programming interface integration with Mastercard Inc.’s Account Updater service. Visa Inc. announced two initiatives to aid financial technology companies in …

Long outclassed by nimble tech players, financial institutions are finally scoring points in the P2P payments game with the rapidly growing Zelle network. But nobody’s conceding defeat in this much-coveted market. Keeping track of the players in peer-to-peer payments is like following an ensemble cast—a playbill is needed to identify …

With a push from regulators and competitive forces, banks are stepping up their development of application programming interfaces to enhance their payment and other financial services. APIs, which provide links so that disparate software systems, such as those at a bank and a financial-technology company that wants to offer services …

(This is the second part of a two-part column. Part I appeared in the April issue.) Last month, we went through the first three steps in a process that banks and fintechs have used to innovate. This month, we’ll complete our description of the process of facilitated group innovation. It’s …