Topic summary
Payment processing
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Payment processor.
Evolution of payment technology
The first online payment processing company was founded in 1998, first under the name Confinity, which was later changed to X.com, changing again to its current name, PayPal, in 2001. The market continued to expand over the following two decades, branching out into a full payment processing ecosystem that includes card companies, digital wallets and apps, cryptocurrencies, payments software platforms and gateways, eCommerce partnerships, and peer-to-peer payments. Other technologies that are vital to the payment ecosystem are data security systems and processes, automated functionality, and customer engagement tools.