NEW YORK – There's a ton of new investment going into changing the way we do payments, according to a recent article by Rob Wile in Business Insider.

According to Wile, most of our transactions rely on eons-old technology. Even newer innovations are starting to show their age, whether in the form of millions of people getting their credit card numbers stolen, or in the fight over how much a credit card company can charge a retailer to sign up for its network.

The result can be billions of dollars in lost productivity. The article cites Bitcoin as an example of innovation at the forefront of the movement to upend payments, as it subtly morphs from an alternative currency aimed at taking down the dollar into a technology capable of addressing a variety of payment problems.

But Bitcoin is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to disrupting the payments space. The article lists 10 things to improve the way we pay for things, as well as some of the fixes that have been implemented — or need to be, including:

• Signatures on receipts: There is no justifiable reason for either buyer or seller to have to deal with this. The ostensible purpose is to indemnify a retailer in case of fraud. But someone has got to come up with a way to enable verification that doesn't involve scribbling on a small piece of paper. Beginning late next year credit card companies will introduce technology that will someday allow us to enter a PIN instead. 
• Paper receipts in general: There has to be a more efficient, automated way to keep track of all your transactions without stuffing small scraps of paper in your pocket. Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey wants to turn receipts into a "full-blown application.”
• $10 minimum credit card usage: You're out of cash. All you need is a Coke. You run downstairs to your bodega. You go to pay for the can with your credit card and the guy hits you with a minimum. The reason for these minimums is swipe fees, which make the cost of processing small transactions exorbitant for your average retailer, and one of the things Bitcoin would help alleviate.
• Hackable retailers storing your credit card info: It cost the CEO of Target his job, but we should really be blaming the plastic game in general. Blockchain cryptography could help alleviate this problem through the use of two-key encryption.
• The card part of credit cards: The physical aspect, at least. You shouldn't have to face a temporary financial crisis if you leave your credit card at home one morning. Mobile wallets help solve this issue, although no one has quite cracked the code to get them to expand en masse.
• ACH: Approximately 98% of all electronic payment transactions in the U.S. currently go through ACH, a 40-year-old network that began life in the Air Force. It processes an average of 60 million individual transactions a day. It takes 24 hours, at best, for the transaction to clear both parties' banks. The goal is "real-time" payments that happen soon after you push go on the transaction.