Shares of Affirm on Monday closed up 46.67% after the buy now, pay later platform announced a partnership with Amazon. The partnership, which was made available to some Amazon users Friday, will allow customers to break up purchases of $50 or more into smaller installments. It also marks Amazon’s first partnership with an installment player, though the company already offers installment options on some items. The deal was announced last Friday, sending Affirm shares up as much as 50% in after-hours trading.
The growth rates in card spending in most sectors from entertainment to orthodontia dovetails with the rising dollar amounts Americans are adding to their cards annually.
“The card and payments industry have major tailwinds driving growth that were sped up due to COVID,” said Strawhecker, which dampened spending last year as businesses shut down and people stayed home, and then accelerated it this year when those trends reversed.
“The reasons for the shift are multi-pronged," TSG said. "Many high-growth industries may be benefiting from consumer preferences shifting to digital goods like buying apps on a phone, new volume shifting from check to card, as well as the proliferation of e-commerce spending on services like online grocery shopping.”
At PayPal's investor day earlier this year, CEO Dan Schulman laid out plans for PayPal to become a financial "super app." The plan included investing in bill payment, a high-yield savings account, efforts in cryptocurrency, and enabling investments in securities for its users. The company's already taking its first steps toward developing and registering an investment platform within PayPal called Invest at PayPal, and it could launch next year. PayPal has the advantage of serving over 400 million active accounts, most of which have linked their bank account information to the platform already.
E-commerce has its benefits—shopping in your pajamas, for one. But many consumers saw its dark side last year. Scammers have swindled consumers out of $545 million in Covid–related scams since the start of the pandemic, per the Federal Trade Commission. The agency received 500,000+ complaints from Jan. 1, 2020 through Aug. 30, 2021; the most (55,000) came from online shopping, and totaled $45 million in losses.
James Martin Davis, who received his law degree after serving as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service, and receiving honors for his military service in the Vietnam war, died Monday after falling ill in a courtroom in Tecumseh, Nebraska. Davis became a familiar figure on the Omaha scene with his straight-forward style and tenacious approach to representing those who needed his help. "As a veteran of the Vietnam War and the courtroom, he chose a career of service, said Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert in a statement. "Like so many, I will miss his friendship and his presence at the Hall of Justice"
Apple has been taking a lot of flak lately over the 30 percent cut it takes from app developers. Starting next year, though, certain developers will be able to avoid paying the tech giant a commission. The company has announced that it will update the App Store in early 2022 to allow developers of "reader" apps to add in-app links to their websites, allowing users to set up their accounts and make payments. Apple defines reader apps as those that "provide previously purchased content or content subscriptions for digital magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music and video." As Bloomberg notes, that means the new rule would apply to services like Netflix and Spotify.
Twitter launched its Super Follows feature on iOS Wednesday (Sept. 1), an option that is powered by payments platform Stripe. With Super Follows, creators can set up monthly subscriptions to monetize bonus consent, allowing them to diversify their revenue sources. The feature is available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out in more countries soon. “Stripe’s products now power many leading businesses growing the creator economy, including Clubhouse, Substack, GoFundMe, Kickstarter and Patreon,” the company said in a news release.
“The BNPL market in the U.S. is seeing more partnerships which means it is a mature market. It’s a tough time to get in,” says Sheridan Trent, a research analyst for The Strawhecker Group. Two potential keys to success for Zilch are building loyalty to its offering, especially among young consumers, and carving out share in vertical markets. “Loyalty is key because 30% to 40% of young consumers have tried BNPL and that figure is likely to grow even higher now that Amazon has partnered with Affirm to offer BNPL,” Trent says.
Square’s popular free invoicing software is becoming the company’s next big subscription service. The company is poised to announce a paid subscription offering called Invoices Plus, which will offer sellers a set of advanced features, including some that had previously been available with the free service. The service itself had been quietly introduced to individual sellers, but has not yet been publicly announced. Some sellers who were already using Square Invoices were recently alerted to the upcoming changes via email.
When you’re buying a pricey sofa or a kitchen cabinet set from Ikea, you can pay for it in installments. Now, you can also buy smaller items—like rugs and lamps—and pay for them later. This week Ikea’s parent company, Ingka Group, announced it is investing more than $20 million in a company called Jifiti, which provides “buy now, pay later,” among other financial services. According to a statement by Ingka, the new deal with Jifiti provides customers the option of buying Ikea products and paying them off over time.
The emergence earlier this year of a virulent new coronavirus variant “threatens to reverse the gains made in the first six months of the year” by the U.S. restaurant industry, according to data released Tuesday by the National Restaurant Association. The news comes as eateries have adopted contactless forms of payment, online ordering, outdoor dining, and other measures over the past 18 months to maintain business, and in some cases to remain open in the face of the pandemic.
Many shoppers are coming to expect an omnichannel customer experience when they enter a brick-and-mortar store. According to a new survey of 586 U.S. consumers from omnichannel store operations platform Newstore, in-store mobile technology is one leading-edge feature of the physical store that a growing number of consumers are seeking. More than half (54%) of respondents say associates should have a mobile device, while 39% want to shop and checkout in-store via mobile device.
Through a multiyear deal, Schnucks will deploy Simbe’s Tally solution at stores in its four-state footprint, Progressive Grocer reported. The robots provide AI-powered inventory management technology. Grocers have experimented with robots over the past few years, with Walmart trying out inventory tracking robots, as well as others. The Tally solution will give Schnucks enterprise-wide visibility into store conditions and offer business insights as consumers continue to shift behaviors through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, is requesting input from the cryptocurrency and blockchain community to inform future legislation on its security, data privacy and other investor protections, according to the committee. Industry and security experts alike praise efforts to regulate the space, but warn of its complexities and inherent anonymity.
Some of the most successful and lucrative online scams employ a “low-and-slow” approach — avoiding detection or interference from researchers and law enforcement agencies by stealing small bits of cash from many people over an extended period. Here’s the story of a cybercrime group that compromises up to 100,000 email inboxes per day, and apparently does little else with this access except siphon gift card and customer loyalty program data that can be resold online.
What’s the definition of immediate, the Board of the Federal Reserve has asked in connection with FedNow, the new real-time payments network set to launch in 2023. Only a few domestic banks and payments organizations responded to the request for comment, so the Fed has extended its deadline until Sept. 9. The U.S. Faster Payments Council asked for another 60 days for comments. Katie Lawrence, payment operations compliance manager at SAFE Credit Union in the Folsom, Calif. wants the Fed to specify what it means by immediate payment.
Businesses in the U.S. created a lackluster 374,000 new jobs in August, a new ADP survey found, suggesting the delta strain of the coronavirus depressed hiring last month. ADP sometimes acts as an early-warning system of sorts for the government’s more comprehensive employment survey that comes out a few days later. Yet the two reports also diverge quite sharply from time to time and that’s been especially true during the pandemic. In July, for example, ADP said 326,000 private-sector jobs were created. The Labor Department reported a much larger 703,000 increase.
U.S. manufacturing activity unexpectedly picked up in August amid strong order growth, but a measure of factory employment dropped to a nine-month low, likely as workers remained scarce. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Wednesday its index of national factory activity inched up to 59.9 last month from a reading of 59.5 in July. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in manufacturing, which accounts for 11.9% of the U.S. economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index falling to 58.6.
Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, has deepened its partnership with China’s UnionPay International, one of the world’s largest payment networks. The integration will enable businesses in more than 30 markets, including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as across the European Union, to securely and seamlessly accept payments from billions of UnionPay cardholders globally.
Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, launched Score. The company is first-to-market with a machine learning driven solution, on a single platform, for signaling irregular activity and monitoring platform compliance. By leveraging data insights analyzing the platform merchant’s data and flagging unusual platform user behavior, Score helps Adyen’s merchants prevent misuse of the platform. As Score provides insights via a broad set of risk signals, the feature is of significant support for platform merchants’ compliance procedures.
Whether a resident or visitor to New York City, tapping to ride is a quick, easy and secure way to get around New York. Now, riders who tap with their Chase Visa contactless card can also give back to local nonprofit New York Cares, the largest volunteer network in the city, which has been vital in supporting the local community throughout the challenges of the pandemic. Visa’s Future of Urban Mobility study found that 88% of surveyed riders globally expect contactless payment options on transit.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced that it has completed its acquisition of PagoEfectivo, a market-leading, Peruvian-based alternative payments (APM) platform. For Paysafe, the investment gives it a strategic foothold in Latin America, one of the world’s fastest-growing online markets where merchants and consumers alike are demonstrating an increased appetite for alternative payment methods and open banking solutions. Together with its recently announced plans to acquire SafetyPay, the two Latin American investments position Paysafe as a prominent payments partner in the region.
Bluefin has announced the launch of a new brand to reflect the company’s market position and dual-focus on innovative security solutions for both payments and sensitive consumer and company data, including Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI) and banking account data. Bluefin was founded as Capital Payments in 2007 and changed its name to Bluefin Payment Systems in 2012. Along with the new brand came a laser-focus on protecting payment data.
Payments Canada announces today the launch of the first release of Lynx, Canada's new high-value payment system. Lynx is replacing the Large Value Transfer System (LVTS), which has served as Canada's high-value payment system for over 20 years. Designated by the Bank of Canada as a systemically important payment system under the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, Lynx will process large value, time-critical payments (i.e. wire payments) with real-time settlement finality and will provide enhanced cyber security and resiliency capabilities.
epay, the digital payments business segment of global financial technology solutions and payments provider Euronet Worldwide, Inc. announced the integration of the PayPal QR Code in their point-of-sale solution. The solution is already live in Germany and will be available in other markets in the future. With this, the full-service payment provider is extending its portfolio of popular mobile payment methods for brick-and-mortar retailers and giving retail partners access to an impressive potential customer base of 29.1 million active PayPal customers in Germany and over 400 million active customers worldwide.
Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse announce the go-live of their omnichannel crypto payment solution for the more than 85’000 Swiss merchants in the Worldline network. Now all merchants in Switzerland using the Worldline point-of-sale and e-commerce payment services can let their clients pay in Bitcoin and Ether as easily as with other traditional payment options.
Quisitive Technology Solutions Inc., a premier Microsoft Cloud Services and Payment Solutions Provider, has announced that it has achieved Level 1 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI”) certification for its LedgerPay solution. PCI certification is a robust set of requirements that certify that a payments company processes, stores, and transfers payments information via a secure environment.
Certegy, a leading ACH payments and risk management company, announced the launch of its new MobilePay solution enabling field and home service merchants to accept checks from any location. The MobilePay app authorizes the payment, converts it to an electronic ACH, and deposits the payment remotely into the merchants’ bank account. The MobilePay app is available for both iOS and Android phones and tablets via the Apple App Store and the Google Play store.
Monetra Technologies announces that it has received validation under the Payment Card Industry’s (PCI) new Secure Lifecycle (Secure SLC) standard. The Secure SLC standard is part of the PCI Software Security Framework, which includes a validation program for software vendors and their software products and a qualification program for assessors that will replace the older Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) when it is retired in 2022. Monetra Technologies, an i3 Verticals® company, is the first independent software vendor to receive Secure SLC validation.
Payflex is the first and largest BNPL player in South Africa and has grown from a base of just 70 merchants in 2019 to over 1,000 active merchants today. Over 135,000 customers have used Payflex - five times the customer base of 25,000 just a year ago. With a presence in twelve markets across five continents, Zip plans to grow the South African business and expand into other African markets with sizable underbanked, digitally savvy populations.
