82% of small businesses reported accepting at least one digital P2P option at their business.
That's according to new research conducted by TSG and ETA. Over 500 U.S. small businesses were surveyed to better understand trends and how usage of peer-to-peer (P2P) payments has spilled over to merchants, gig workers, and side hustles.
Check out our infographic for key findings and learn why small businesses are turning to P2P, which options are most widely accepted, and what the future holds.
When Apple Inc. on Monday announced Apple Pay Later, its buy now, pay later program, the computing giant added an unexpected twist. The new program will not rely for financing on Goldman Sachs, Apple’s long-time partner for Apple Pay. Rather, Apple is setting up its own unit, to be called Apple Financing LLC. But as Apple’s product line consists of high-end computers, mobile devices, and other big-ticket gear, some observers are wondering about the risk the company may be taking on.
Estimates vary regarding the typical, or average, loan on BNPL. Data from the computing company Salesforce pegs it at $149. But some observers argue it’s higher. “It’s probably around $200,” says Sheridan Trent, a senior research analyst at The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments consultancy. She figures Apple will user various tactics to control risk with Apple Pay Later purchases, including transaction limits. “I’m assuming they’re going to put a cap on the amount you can borrow,” she says.
Cash hasn’t gone away yet. That is actually good news for many payments stocks. One big concern about payment companies has been that the surge in digital transactions and online purchases during the Covid-19 pandemic was a one-time shift in habits that pulled ahead years of growth, leaving much less runway for these stocks. But Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu, speaking at a Bernstein conference late last week, said that based on the company’s best calculations, growth in the conversion of cash to digital through the pandemic was accelerated by maybe only one year.
The B2B payments space is complicated, fraught with legacy systems and processes and populated by far too many friction points. Mastercard is focused on helping to modernize the landscape by working through the B2B value chain through innovation that addresses each friction point along the way. Payment facilitators are critical to the business ecosystem, and we’ve removed a key friction point they face by increasing the annual per-merchant limit from $1M to $10M. This tenfold increase enables payment facilitators to continue to support their client’s spend growth, but to an entirely new level.
If you have questions about this news, TSG's Peter Michaud would be happy to discuss.
ACI Worldwide announced ACI Smart Engage, a unique mobile engagement platform that enables merchants worldwide to serve up their inventory of goods and services directly to consumers’ smartphones using location, voice and image recognition technology, taking shopping-on-the-go to a new level. With ACI Smart Engage, geolocation coupled with scannable media and audio tags within TV, print and radio ads, posters, magazines, catalogues, window displays and more will enable consumers to instantly purchase items 24/7 with one click while on-the-go.
A potential takeover of ATM maker NCR Corp. (NYSE:NCR) is said to be moving along. Apollo Group (APO) is the name that appears to being the name most talked about as a potential buyer, CNBC's David Faber said on the network earlier on Wednesday, citing people familiar. "We'll see if they get there," Faber said. "It's weeks away if it happens at all," Faber said.
The co-founder of $95 billion fintech giant Stripe defended the company’s business practices after complaints from rivals that it engages in unfair competition. John Collison, Stripe’s president, said Tuesday he is “pretty unapologetic” about the company’s decisions to launch similar features to rival fintech firms, adding this is “how the economy works.” “Sometimes we launch a product first and then other people come along and develop competitors to that,” Collison told reporters at the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam.
In response to customer demand, PayPal announced today that its users will now be able to transfer cryptocurrency from their accounts to other wallets and exchanges. “This feature was the most demanded from our users since we began offering the purchase of crypto on our platform,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, SVP and general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies at PayPal.
Ecuadorian payments infrastructure company Kushki has raised $100 million in an extension to its Series B round, more than doubling its valuation to $1.5 billion. The startup had raised $86 million in the first tranche of the financing in June of 2021 at a post-money valuation of $600 million. It has raised nearly $200 million since its 2017 inception, according to Crunchbase. Raising an extension as opposed to a new round made more sense because it was the same investors doubling down, according to CEO and co-founder Aron Schwarzkopf.
Kohl’s Corp. is entering exclusive talks regarding a sale with one of its suitors. The department store company has entered into exclusive negotiations with Franchise Group Inc. (FRG), a holding company whose retail portfolio includes The Vitamin Shoppe, Pet Supplies Plus and rent-to-own chain Buddy’s Home Furnishings, for a period of three weeks. Franchise Group is proposing to buy Kohl's for $60 per share, which would value the business at approximately $8 billion.
Target is getting out ahead of a big problem: unwanted inventory. Yesterday, the big-box retailer warned profits could take a hit in the short term as the company executes a plan to do away with excess stuff. It’s gotta go: CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC that Target plans to make room for in-demand inventory like groceries, beauty products, household items, and back-to-school supplies, and shift away from popular pandemic-era categories. The plan entails slashing prices and canceling orders for those unwanted items.
Adobe announced the latest online inflation data from the Adobe Digital Price Index (DPI), powered by Adobe Analytics. In May 2022, online prices increased 2% year-over-year (YoY)—down from 2.9% YoY in April and the record 3.6% YoY increase in March—while decreasing 0.7% month-over-month (MoM). While this marks two full years of inflation online YoY, May is the second month where online price increases have slowed. The majority of categories tracked by the DPI (10 out of 18) saw MoM price decreases in May.
As part of a nationwide effort to educate and inform both law enforcement and consumers, the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) announced the release of a handout addressing cryptocurrency fraud schemes. The two-page document includes brief descriptions of six different types of fraud schemes and recommendations for law enforcement best practices when a crypto ATM scam is suspected.
Data published by EMVCo shows that at the end of 2021, 12 billion EMV® chip cards were in global circulation. This marked a significant 1.1 billion increase compared to the previous twelve months. Global issuance and adoption also rose, with EMVCo data showing 68% of all issued cards are EMV-enabled and 90% of all card-present transactions conducted globally used EMV chip technology.
Stablecoins traded in the U.S. state of New York should be fully backed by certain assets, with these assets segregated from the issuers’ operational funds and attested to by an auditor regularly, according to new guidance issued by the state’s banking and finance regulator. The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which oversees regulated crypto companies in the state, published its first stablecoin-specific guidance Wednesday, listing a series of requirements that any issuer operating in the state must abide by.
Green Dot on Monday paid $13 million to Republic Bank to settle a lawsuit the Louisville, Kentucky-based bank filed in October over the prepaid card provider’s failed attempt to buy Republic’s tax refund processing unit. The settlement comes in addition to a $5 million termination fee Green Dot paid Republic in January related to the foiled transaction, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings made by both companies this week.
The global economy may be headed for years of weak growth and rising prices, a toxic combination that will test the stability of dozens of countries still struggling to rebound from the pandemic, the World Bank warned Tuesday. Not since the 1970s — when twin oil shocks sapped growth and lifted prices, giving rise to the malady known as “stagflation” — has the global economy faced such a challenge. The bank slashed its annual global growth forecast to 2.9 percent from January’s 4.1 percent and said that “subdued growth will likely persist throughout the decade because of weak investment in most of the world.”
Americans are continuing to lean on credit cards and loans, as consumer credit surged by $38 billion in April amid the highest inflation in 40 years. The latest Federal Reserve data on outstanding consumer credit, released Tuesday afternoon, comes after March's record increase of $52.4 billion. That figure has since been revised downward to $47.3 billion. Revolving credit, which mostly includes credit card balances, grew at an annualized rate of 19.6% and totaled $1.103 trillion in April, just breaking a pre-pandemic record of $1.1 trillion, according to the report.
As U.S. gasoline prices approach a record average of $5 a gallon, fuel costs are rippling through almost every corner of business, with signs emerging that the rising expenses are beginning to alter consumer behavior. The price of regular gasoline averaged about $4.97 Thursday, up about 26 cents from the prior week and nearly $2-a-gallon higher compared with this time last year, according to AAA. The steady climb in prices comes as the U.S. economy’s recovery from the pandemic has let loose pent-up demand for travel, by road and by air, and with many returning to work commutes.
Shortages of semiconductors, car parts, and other key items that flow through supply chains are likely to remain for the foreseeable future, Citi warned in a new note. "Bottom line, we find that supply chain pressures have proved to be more persistent, and apparently deep rooted, than we had expected even a few months ago," strategists led by Global Chief Economist of Citi Research Nathan Sheets wrote in a comprehensive note. "And the Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to be further amplifying the stresses.
The Bank of America Institute released its findings from the latest Consumer Checkpoint, which aims to provide a holistic and real-time estimate of U.S. consumers’ spending and their financial well-being, leveraging the breadth and depth of Bank of America proprietary data from its 67 million consumer and small business clients. Aggregated Bank of America credit and debit card spending was up 9% in May year-over-year; within this, credit card spending rose by 16% year-over-year, while debit card spending increased by 4%.
Mastercard announced its latest payments feature, Pay by link, led by its European open banking pioneer Aiia. With the feature in place, businesses from any industry are able to cut out unnecessary payment steps by creating a simple link that allows customers to pay instantly in any given context. The new payments feature ties directly into Mastercard’s open banking vision of ushering in a new era of choice, simplicity and personalization in a safe and secure manner.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, has expanded the diverse portfolio of payout options available to businesses using its Carat operating system to include digital checks. Enabled in collaboration with Checkbook, Inc., an all-in-one push-payments processor, this new capability allows businesses that deliver mass payouts to offer additional choice, speed the delivery of funds to customers, and reduce operational costs associated with paper checks.
May require account to read. Payment firms for years have offered card data to support their business clients' strategies, a concept JPMorgan Chase hopes to outdo by tapping its own card operations. To help merchants improve their marketing, pricing and staffing strategies in a tightening economy, Chase this week began sharing deep insights about shoppers' habits gleaned from two streams: its U.S. massive consumer card-spending database and huge national card-processing operations.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, has partnered with APEXX Global, the multi-award-winning global payments orchestration platform, to offer Paysafe’s payment processing services to APEXX Global’s merchant base. Through the new collaboration, APEXX Global will support its merchants to scale globally by increasing their international payment acceptance with Paysafe, enabling them to process card transactions seamlessly across multiple countries and currencies.
Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, announced the launch of a delegated authentication feature to improve payment conversion rates in Europe. Stripe businesses can now have their customers authenticate purchases right inside a checkout flow. Wise is the first card issuer to implement the feature. As a result, cardholders will no longer be redirected to their Wise app when authenticating purchases from millions of Stripe businesses.
Factor4, LLC, a leading provider of gift card and loyalty solutions, announces their gift card partnership with Talus Pay, a fast-growing technology-driven provider of payment processing solutions for small and mid-sized merchants. The partnership allows Talus Pay to add an omnichannel gift card solution to their business offerings that enables merchants to seamlessly process gift card transactions in-store, online and via mobile devices on one platform.
BentoBox, the Marketing and Commerce platform for over 8,000 restaurants worldwide, announced the launch of BentoBox Payments. With the addition of Payments to the BentoBox platform, restaurants have access to an end-to-end solution to take orders, process payments and manage them all within the same platform, meeting restaurant operator demand for easy-to-use technology solutions to help them manage their business.
Simpay, a full-service payments, payroll, and POS provider, expands partnership with Fee Navigator to power their next phase of growth. Simpay's CEO & Founder, Lazaros Kalemis, noted "This is an exciting next step for Simpay and Fee Navigator. As an innovative organization ourselves, we’re always looking to improve our services by continually updating our tech stack, which ultimately benefits our customers. The next level capabilities Fee Navigator is introducing, allows us to serve our customers faster and more accurately."
Euronet Merchant Services, part of the EFT business segment of leading global financial technology solutions and payments provider Euronet Worldwide, Inc., has announced a strategic partnership with FreedomPay, the Next Level Commerce™ platform of choice for thousands of merchants globally. As a leader in connected commerce, FreedomPay is rapidly expanding globally across critical verticals such as Retail, eCommerce, Hospitality and Food & Beverage.
Thought Machine, the cloud-native banking technology company, launches Vault Payments: a new, cloud-native cards and payments processing platform. Launching with card processing on the Mastercard network, Vault Payments has been built from scratch as a cloud-native payments processing platform – ensuring the platform is scalable, highly configurable, and can operate in real time.
NMI, a leading full commerce enablement technology company, and Scheidt & Bachmann, a global mobility solution provider, have strengthened their partnership by integrating a new payment solution for parking pay stations across the UK. With travel picking up, so have transactions associated with tolls, tickets and parking meters.
Global payment processor Checkout.com has launched a new stablecoin settlement system that will allow merchants to process crypto payments from their customers in real time — potentially widening the use cases of stablecoins within e-commerce. The stablecoin settlement system centers around Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and allows merchants to automatically convert USDC payments into fiat upon receipt.
AffiniPay, the parent company of LawPay, announced that it will acquire legal practice management software company, MyCase, from funds advised by Apax. This combination creates one of the fastest-growing integrated legal practice management software and payments companies, and strengthens both LawPay and MyCase’s commitment to serve all law firms and their clients.
Revolut is using payment initiation services (PIS) technology from open banking player Tink to let users across Europe seamlessly move money into their account. Tink's PIS technology enables users to connect to the bank account they want to move money from, and instantaneously authorise and complete the payment without leaving the Revolut app.
