Over 120 million payments will be made every single day in the UK by 2024, the equivalent of 44 billion payments a year. E-commerce, card and mobile payments are driving the increase as cash payments rapidly decline.

The smartwatch arena is about to welcome a potentially exciting newcomer. Blocks, which currently has 34 more days of funding to go on its Kickstarter page, bids to become the world’s first modular smartwatch.

Bangalore-based Ultracash has piloted a mobile payment service that allows users to make payments using a unique ultra high-frequency encrypted sound-based technology.

MasterCard has launched Safety Net, a global tool that reduces the impact of cyber hacking of banks and processors.

E-commerce solution firm OpenCart has partnered with BitcoinPay.com, Europe’s largest bitcoin payment processor, enabling all OpenCart merchants to accept the virtual currency on their online stores.

As technology becomes more advanced, so does the amount of insight and information we can glean from it. Financial institutions are catching on as they are starting to use Big Data and this infographic provides a detailed breakdown of the ways banks are using it to improve their services.