đ TSG Announces 2022 Top Performing Payment Gateways
Recognized payment gateway companies include CSG Forte, FIS, Elavon, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America
TSG is pleased to recognize a selection of payment gateways for their exceptional performance across several key areas critical to a successful payment platform.
Small businesses will soon be able to use iPhones to accept payments without the need for Square-style extra hardware, according to a Bloomberg report. The feature has been anticipated since Apple bought contactless payment startup Mobeewave in 2020, and Bloomberg now says it could be coming via a software update âin the coming months.â Mobeewave previously worked with Samsung on similar NFC functionality, trialing a system called Samsung POS in the startupâs home country of Canada in 2019 before launching it worldwide.
After years of effort, Metaâs cryptocurrency initiative has collapsed under the weight of regulatory scrutiny. The Diem Association, formerly known as the Libra Association, is considering selling its assets and returning money to investors, according to a Bloomberg report. Thereâs not much to sell, though. The company doesnât have much in the way of physical assetsâjust some intellectual property. Perhaps the most valuable part of the association is its engineers. Diem is reportedly looking for a ânew homeâ for them. Mark Zuckerberg first announced the project in 2019, back when his company was named Facebook and the project was named Libra.
May require account to read. Visa Inc. topped $7 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, buoyed by a quicker-than-expected resumption in travel spending and sustained growth in categories like e-commerce that had been strong throughout the pandemic. The company generated fiscal first-quarter net income of $4.0 billion, or $1.83 a share, up from $3.1 billion, or $1.42 a share, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, Visa V, +0.14% earned $1.81 a share. Analysts tracked by FactSet were expecting $1.70 in both GAAP and adjusted earnings per share.
Mastercard reported Thursday its earnings for the fourth quarter ending December 31, 2021 of $2.3 billion, or $2.35 per share, a 27% increase from the previous year, on revenue of $5.2 billion. The company beat analyst expectations, which had estimated that Q4 earnings per share would come in at $2.19. Revenue for the full year is also up 23% to $18.9 billion. Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said in the press release that the increase in revenue is due in part to an increase in consumer cross-border spending, which the company reports is now above pre-pandemic levels.
American Express Co. saw its crucial travel-and-entertainment business continue to recover in the final three months of 2021, leading top company executives Tuesday morning to express considerable optimism for 2022. But donât look any time soon for the New York City-based card giant to make any major forays into buy now, pay later lending or cryptocurrency, hot markets for which rival networks are developing enabling technology. âWe watch crypto more as an asset class,â AmEx chief executive Stephen Squeri told equity analysts during a morning call to discuss AmExâs fourth-quarter results.
Australian buy now-pay later company Zip is eyeing a possible purchase of Minneapolis-based Sezzle as the biggest players in the rapidly-expanding BNPL industry jockey to consolidate market power. Zip âis in discussions with Sezzle in relation to a potential acquisition,â the Sydney-based company said in a statement Tuesday. It noted the deal could still fall through because the talks âare preliminary in nature and there is no certainty that the discussions will result in a transaction of any kind.â
The UK's payments watchdog has set out new rules designed to inject more competition into the market for card acquiring services. The consultation follows a review published in November which found that the supply of card-acquiring services does not work well for merchants with annual card turnover up to ÂŁ50 million. These merchants could make savings by shopping around or negotiating with their current supplier, but many do not.
Affirm, the payment network that empowers consumers and helps merchants drive growth, announced the launch of two significant additions to its product suite: the Affirm SuperApp and Chrome browser extension. Affirmâs new SuperApp delivers the best of Affirmâs shopping, payments, and financial services in one easy-to-use destination. The new Google Chrome browser extension allows consumers to use Affirmâs flexible and transparent payment solutions at virtually any retailerâs website, even if Affirm isnât listed as being available at checkout.
Swedish fintech firm Klarna is embedding its âbuy now, pay laterâ service into a physical card in the U.K. The company on Wednesday announced the launch of Klarna Card, a Visa card that lets users delay payments on their purchases, both in-store as well as online. The card is already available in Sweden and Germany, where it is now used by over 800,000 people, according to Klarna. This is the first time it has arrived in a country outside the European Union.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Afterpay has formed partnerships with Nordstrom, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, with Nordstom already offering Afterpayâs service online and in-store. âWe are constantly evolving to enhance the customer experience both in-store and online at Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack,â Dennis Bauer, president of payments and credit at Nordstrom, said in a news release. âThis includes offering flexible payment options to meet customer needs. We have heard from our customers that buy now, pay later programs resonate with them and are excited to partner with Afterpay to make these options available to them.â
Twelve months ago this week, thousands of retail investors banded together to bid up the stocks of a handful of ailing companies, notably the video game retailer GameStop and the movie theater chain AMC. The actions sent those shares soaring, booking huge gains on paper and dealing heavy losses to hedge funds and to other professional investors who were betting against the companies. On this day last year, Jan. 27, 2021, GameStop hit its record high, closing up nearly 1,800 percent from just a few weeks before. The so-called meme stock phenomenon had been born, and some said it would signal a permanent power shift on Wall Street.
In September, El Salvador became the first country to allow consumers to use the cryptocurrency in all transactions, alongside the US dollar. The decision led to large-scale protests over fears it would bring instability and inflation to the impoverished Latin American country. Bitcoin has lost about half its value since November. The IMF has warned President Nayib Bukele of the risks the cryptocurrency poses to the country, stressing that it would be difficult to get a loan from the institution.
A financial technology start-up that Walmart created and backed said Wednesday it is acquiring two more companies as it aims to build an all-in-one app where consumers can manage their money. The combined company will be called ONE, the name of one of the firms that the fintech start-up is acquiring. It is also purchasing another fintech company, Even. Financial terms were not disclosed. Walmart â the countryâs largest private employer and biggest grocer â announced an effort last year to develop unique, affordable financial products that it could offer its millions of customers and employees.
The quest for control of Kohl's (KSS) is heating up. On Saturday, the retailer received an unsolicited $9 billion bid to go private from a consortium backed by an activist investor, according to published sources. The hedge fund, Starboard Value LP, offered to buy the department store chain for $64 a share in cash, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both reported. Starboard controls Acacia Research Corp., the group making the buyout overture, according to the reports.
Store retailers should expect a traffic boost from consumers on the hunt for Valentineâs Day gifts. The majority of consumers said their Valentine's Day shopping will take place in-store (87%) compared to online (36%), according to a survey by shopping rewards app Shopkick. The report, which surveyed more than 18,300 people, also found that 67% of consumers plan to celebrate Valentineâs Day by giving gifts.
FedEx and Microsoft are in ship-shop shape. The two companies announced a âcross-platform âlogistics-as-a-serviceââ offering for brands, retailers, and merchants yesterday, that will give consumers more shopping options and help ensure their packages are delivered on time. The service allows brands to better fulfill, ship, and service orders, since it will be streamlined into retailersâ existing e-comm platforms.
Lowe's is going to the dogs, not to mention cats and other pets, too. The home improvement store chain is teaming up with Petco on a pilot store-in-store program that brings pet products such as food, beds and toys, and services like grooming and vaccinations to select Loweâs locations. The first Loweâs + Petco store-in-store concept is expected to open in early February at the Loweâs in Alamo Ranch, Texas, the two retailers announced Thursday.
Brex and 1Password have formed a partnership to make online payments âsecure and frictionless,â according to a Tuesday 1Password blog post by Browser Experience Lead Andrew Beyer, who notes 1Password customers can now use Brex virtual credit cards to check out online in two clicks. âGrowing businesses choose Brex because their all-in-one platform of financial software, services, and products makes it easy to control corporate spending and manage runway in one place,â the blog post says.
Samsung has revealed what it calls the "industry's first" all-in-one fingerprint security chip (IC) for payment cards. The S3B512C chip reads biometric information via a fingerprint sensor, stores and authenticates data with a tamper-proof secure element (SE) and analyzes it with a secure processor. While primarily designed for payment cards, it could also be used for "student or employee identification, membership or building access," the company said.
The sign on the door for the hairdresser read âCash only, please!â I wasnât sure, but I suspected the reason behind the change in the accepted form of payments might have had something to do with new income-reporting requirements. In the past, payment options had included apps such as Venmo, PayPal and Cash App. To help identify tax cheats, the IRS as of Jan. 1 started requiring all third-party payment processors in the United States to report payments received for goods and services of $600 or more a year.
The number of data breaches hit a record high last year, and experts are concerned explicitly with the increasing number of cyberattacks. According to the 2021 Annual Data Breach Report published by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) on Monday, the overall number of data compromises (1,862) is up more than 68% compared to 2020 (1,108). Out of the 1,862 compromises, 1,600 of those were cyberattacks.
The U.S. economy grew at a much better-than-expected pace to end 2021 from sizeable boosts in inventories and consumer spending, and despite signs that the acceleration likely tailed off toward the end of the year. Gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced during the October-through-December period, increased at a 6.9% annualized pace, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 5.5%.
May require account to read. Slowdowns in the worldâs two biggest economies â the United States and China â are likely to be larger than expected this year, dragging down output on every continent and reducing global growth, a new report warned on Tuesday. Higher inflation, supply chain choke points, and Covid-related shutdowns and worker shortages continue to afflict rich and poor nations, the International Monetary Fund wrote in its latest World Economic Report.
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it would hold the line on short-term interest rates, with an eye toward raising them âsoon,â and that it would pare the rate of its asset purchases, bringing them to a halt in early March. âThe committee is of a mind to raise the federal funds rate at the March meeting,â Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday afternoon at a news conference after a two-day policymaking meeting. That would mean the rate hike would come almost exactly two years to the day after the central bank slashed rates to zero in response to the emergence of the fast-spreading coronavirus, which threatened to destabilize the entire financial system.
Performance benchmarking is vital for payment processing, as it allows payment gateways to pinpoint issues and make adjustments to provide a seamless experience to merchants and consumers alike. That is a key reason why The Strawhecker Group (TSG), a leading payment analytics and consulting firm, created the Gateway Enterprise Metrics (GEM) platform. GEM tracks two-thirds of all payment gateway volume in the U.S., and serves as a benchmark for merchant, developer and gateway performance. These aspects are critical for leading gateways use data and make tangible improvements.
JPMorgan is dipping into its $12 billion technology investment warchest to acquire a 49% stake in European cloud-based payment network Viva Wallet. Founded in 2000, Viva Wallet is headquartered in Athens, Greece, and focuses on serving SMEs in 23 countries. The company operates a cloud-based payments platform that is able to offer a broad array of services to merchants including tap to device technology, merchant cash advance, bill pay, expense management, virtual debit card issuance, cash disbursement, gift cards and loyalty.
Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, has partnered with Spotify to help podcasters accept payments, launch recurring revenue streams, and deepen their connection with fans. Spotifyâs mission is to unlock the power of human creativityâby giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.
Square, the company specializing in software, payments, and hardware solutions for businesses of all sizes, announces its arrival in Spain following a successful Early Access Programme. Starting today, Spanish entrepreneurs, freelancers and business owners will be able to use Squareâs ecosystem of tools; the only end-to-end solution of its kind in the country. âWeâve been trialing Squareâs suite of products both in-store and online and we love it,â said Miguel Gil, owner of Hop Hop Hurrah, one of the first businesses to use Squareâs products in Spain.
Paystone announces the acquisition of Canadian Payment Services (CPS), one of the fastest-growing providers of Canadian merchant services. This acquisition is the sixth addition to Paystoneâs burgeoning portfolio of acquisitions, having acquired five other businesses in the past two years including Montreal-based DataCandy and Vancouver-based NiceJob. âThis is the largest acquisition weâve made to date in relation to both new revenue and clients,â explains Tarique Al-Ansari, CEO at Paystone.
Global payments fintech disruptor, Till Payments, has announced the acquisition of ZIPS, the payment processing business unit of the hospitality technology platform company, Ziosk. This acquisition further strengthens Tillâs integrated payments capabilities and fast tracks the companyâs expansion across North America. The ZIPS business unit has been absorbed into the broader Till business, enabling new and existing partners to access a single-entry gateway to global expansion and greater flexibility for its integrated payments solution.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced its expansion into the regulated New York sports-betting market to strengthen its position as the leader in North American iGaming payments and affiliate marketing. Steered by Zak Cutler, Paysafeâs new CEO of North America iGaming, the move builds on the companyâs strong 2021 growth across the U.S. and Canada, where its established presence benefited from federal sports-betting regulation, and a major Skrill USA digital wallet upgrade for iGaming.
Paya, a leading integrated payments and commerce solution provider, announced its partnership with Transcard, a global leader in payment technology solutions for financial institutions, Fintechs, and businesses. Through the integration of Transcardâs technology and banking infrastructure, Paya will substantially expand its B2B commerce solution suite, adding a best-in-class, fully-integrated accounts payable (AP) module and supplier network.
The New York Boulders announced their ballpark will be renamed Clover Stadium as part of a multi-year naming rights partnership with Fiserv, Inc., a leading provider of payments and financial services technology solutions. The renaming of the home of the Boulders, formerly known as Palisades Credit Union Park, highlights the connection of many local small businesses to the CloverÂź platform from Fiserv. Clover is a complete point-of-sale and business-management platform enabling businesses to maximize their operating efficiencies and grow, while providing customers flexible ways to pay.
Concessions International, a provider of food and beverage solutions at many of the busiest airports across the United States and in the Virgin Islands, announced they have partnered with Shift4, the leader in integrated payments and commerce technology, to deliver a seamless payment experience at their nearly 40 locations. Family-owned and operated for more than 40 years, Atlanta-based Concessions International is one of the largest minority-owned airport concessionaires in the U.S.
Lightspeed Commerce Inc., the one-stop commerce platform for merchants around the world to simplify, scale, and create exceptional customer experiences, announced the expanded launch of the all-new Lightspeed Restaurant, a unified hospitality commerce and point-of-sale (POS) platform. This announcement comes on the heels of the company sharing that U.S.-based Lightspeed hospitality customers outperformed their peers, with Same-Store GTV1 increasing 52% year-over-year in 2021 versus the industry average sales growth of 31% for the same period.
Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, and Scheidt & Bachmann (S&B), a global mobility solution provider, have strengthened their partnership by deploying a new payment solution for fuel stations across Europe. The solution, which combines Worldlineâs Petrol & Energy Suite and S&Bâs SIQMA Connect solution, is specifically tailored towards fuel retailers and will be implemented across Europe in 2022.
RS2 Group, one of the leading global payment service providers, is introducing Shop and Pay, an e-commerce solution which allows business owners to quickly and easily launch their online business. The aim of this solution is to provide small and medium-sized retailers and service providers in particular, with a simple yet powerful solution to take their business digital. This enables more businesses to benefit from the opportunities of the rapidly growing e-commerce market.
Payfactory, a fintech payment facilitator for software platforms, has announced a growth investment from Bluefin, the recognized integrated payments leader in P2PE encryption and vaultless tokenization technologies that protect payments and sensitive data. Formed by payments industry veterans and created for and by developers, Payfactory enables software vendors to effortlessly integrate payment acceptance, own the merchant experience, and minimize risk.
Cardknox, a leading developer-friendly omnichannel payment gateway, announced its expanded support for unattended retail by integrating with the VP6300 and the VP6800, two self-service payment terminals developed by ID TECH, a global leader in payment peripherals. With the growing demand for cashless and contactless payment options, self-service payment terminals offer merchants increased opportunities to capture sales while providing consumers with a frictionless payment experience.