🎙️ Executive Interview with Microsoft- TSG sat down with Microsoft to talk about emerging issues that the payments community may not be aware of, their partnership with Chargebacks911, and what merchants can do to be proactive
As the U.S. economy moves farther from the worst of the Covid pandemic, credit and debit card spending may be stabilizing, according to new data from The Strawhecker Group, a payments advisory and research firm. Released as part of the AIM Headline Report series, the Growth & Inflation Analysis 2022 report suggests 2022 is shaping up as a year of correction. While acquirers’ small-business portfolios boomed in 2021 when compared to a lackluster 2020, similar growth is unlikely in 2022.
Plaid is moving into identity verification in a crucial expansion beyond its roots connecting banks and fintechs — a move that could put it in more direct competition with Stripe, another company known for its financial software tools. In conjunction with its Plaid Forum customer conference this week, the company is also announcing two products focused on ACH transfers as it moves into payments. Plaid, which has been expanding since a planned takeover by Visa fell apart last year over antitrust concerns and was recently valued at $13.4 billion, is feeling some competitive heat, and applying its own.
Meta, formerly Facebook, has submitted five trademark applications in the United States for what appears to be new digital platform dubbed Meta Pay. The trademark applications, filed on May 13, described Meta Pay as an “online social networking service for investors allowing financial trades and exchange of digital currency, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, digital and blockchain assets, digital tokens, [and] crypto tokens.” Apart from payment and trading, Meta Pay could also include digital asset lending and investment services, per other details in the trademark filing.
Block is moving beyond payments, with CEO Jack Dorsey making clear Wednesday that he sees bitcoin as the company’s next frontier. “We are no longer just a payments company,” Dorsey said at the company’s virtual investor day, adding that Block executives see a competitive advantage in intertwining the company’s Square, Cash App, Afterpay, Tidal and TBD entities. Founded in 2009 as Square, the company originally catered solely to smaller merchants with its trademark white square card reader, charging them a fee to process their orders.
With economies emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, Destot took to the stage to explore how today, the payments industry cannot solely rely on a “compass,” or a short-sighted view of innovation. “You need a vision,” Destot added before stating that technology must be leveraged to innovate payments acceptance and foster a new, successful ecosystem. Destot thanked his partners in the audience for the resilience they exhibited during the pandemic, as well as their ability to adapt and reinvent in real time. “During those challenges, you may have perceived that payments became as essential as food or water to our society.
No more fumbling for your phone or hunting for your wallet when you have your hands full – the next generation of in-person payments will only need a quick smile or wave of your hand. The trusted technology that uses your face or fingerprint to unlock your phone can now be used to help consumers speed through the checkout. With Mastercard's new Biometric Checkout Program, all you will need is yourself. As part of a global launch announced earlier today, the program represents a first-of-its-kind technology framework to help establish standards for new ways to pay at stores of all sizes, from major retailers to mom-and-pop shops.
Bitcoin has had seven straight weeks of losses for the time first in its history amid a downturn in broader markets, stricter crypto regulations, waning retail interest and systemic risks in the crypto sector, data shows. Bitcoin neared the $47,000 level in mid-March in a run that lasted a couple of weeks after a fall to $37,000 from November’s lifetime highs of nearly $69,000. The asset has since slid every week and could fall to as low as $20,000 if current market conditions continue.
In the latest commercial from the virtual currency exchange Crypto.com, titled “Bravery Is a Process,” the star basketball player Joel Embiid walks through Philadelphia while Bill Self, his former college coach, lends the narration. “Even when our path didn’t make sense to everyone else, we kept going,” Mr. Self says in the ad, which made its debut on May 6. “We keep going, until our path is the one they wish they’d taken.” What the ad doesn’t say: The crypto market is in the middle of a meltdown. Buyers beware.
Rooted in the earth and deep in tradition, farming might seem like the ultimate offline economy. But lately a new trend has emerged: agriculture has become one of the fastest-growing online industries, as farmers turn to the internet to sell produce, manage their money, and access critical financing. In 2021, thousands of US agricultural businesses collectively processed over $1 billion through Stripe—and over the last two years, nearly 2,000 of them doubled their payment volume.
Partnering with card networks, tech companies and fintechs is the quickest and easiest way for banks and credit unions to get into the buy now, pay later game. Some have already begun to do so, says Sheridan Trent, senior analyst at The Strawhecker Group. Only 2% of community banks currently offer BNPL services, according to an American Banker survey. However, 14% say they would be interested in doing so in conjunction with a partner. These opportunities exist and banks can look at them as a viable way to enter the buy now, pay later market.
In February 2022, Apple announced Tap to Pay – a system that allows businesses to accept payments directly on an iPhone, without any additional hardware. Apple didn't provide much clarity on when the feature will launch, besides saying it's coming "later this year." But there's already one spot where Tap to Pay is operational: Apple Park's Visitor Center. The video, posted to Twitter, shows one person making a purchase by simply tapping another person's (presumably an Apple employee) iPhone. The entire process takes less than a second.
Payments and software startup SpotOn has closed on $300 million in a Series F financing that values the company at $3.6 billion. Dragoneer Investment Group led the latest round, which included participation from existing backers Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), DST Global, Franklin Templeton and Mubadala Investment Company, as well as new investor, G Squared. The investment marks SpotOn’s third raise in the past year alone and Dragoneer’s sixth time investing in the company over a three-year period.
A little over a month after Robinhood publicly released its first crypto wallet, the company has announced it’s working on a second. The new wallet will be non-custodial, giving users sole custody over the private keys necessary to control their money on the blockchain. That means users won’t be dependent on Robinhood if the system fails but will also risk losing their funds entirely if they misplace the private key.
Crypto.com, the world’s fastest growing cryptocurrency platform, announced Shopify merchants can now enable Crypto.com Pay on their online storefronts and expand their reach by giving customers more ways to make their purchases with cryptocurrencies. To welcome Shopify merchants to Crypto.com Pay, Crypto.com will waive the 0.5% settlement fee on all transactions for one month after integrating. The promotion is valid for all Shopify merchants who sign up for Crypto.com Pay until June 30, 2022.
UK BNPL unicorn Zilch is preparing to open its services to 150,000 pre-registered customers in the US. Zilch has been revving up for its US launch for some time, beginning with the acqusition of debt funding platform Neptune Financial in August of last year. A $110 million capital raise in November was billed as a marker for its expansion into the US, which was followed earlier this month by membership of the Financial Technology Association, a lobby group which represents other BNPL providers Afterpay, Figure, Klarna, Sezzle, and Zip.
Kohl’s on Thursday said final and fully financed bids from potential buyers are expected in the coming weeks, as the retailer faces heightened pressure from activists to sell. Chief Executive Officer Michelle Gass said Kohl’s has been “pleased with the number of parties who recognize the value of our business and plan.” The retailer’s stock rose 4%, even as the company posted a massive earnings miss for its fiscal first quarter and slashed its profit and sales outlook for the year. Gass, in a press release, said that 2022 started out below her expectations.
Target Corp. racked up its 20th consecutive quarter of sales growth but its bottom line took a big hit as freight and transportation costs came in much higher than expected. “Throughout the quarter, we faced unexpectedly high costs, driven by a number of factors, resulting in profitability that came in well below our expectations, and well below where we expect to operate over time," said CEO Brian Cornell. Target’s cost of sales increased 10.4% to $18.46 billion, with gross margin contracting to 26.7% from 30.9%, as a result of actions to reduce excess inventory and higher freight and transportation costs.
Zara shoppers in the UK might be thinking twice before clicking Add to Cart more than once. Last week, the fast-fashion giant started charging its UK customers a fee of £1.95 to return their online purchases—well, if they drop them off somewhere other than its stores. (There, the only cost is time spent in line.) Now, Zara isn’t the first retailer to make this move, and, according to analysts we spoke to, it might not be the last. Here are their thoughts on the strategy.
After years of relative quiet, congressional concern is mounting about constantly increasing “swipe” fees that payment networks and banks charge retailers to process credit and debit card transactions. The fees, which are most merchants’ highest cost after labor and drive up the prices consumers pay, soared 24 percent last year to an all-time record of $137.8 billion. Swipe fees have more than doubled over the past decade, and cost the average American family more than an estimated $900 a year.
May require account to read. For years, there were usually less than a handful of cases at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that involved payments. That is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. CFPB Director Rohit Chopra has made payments a top priority, and is looking closely at impacts on competition and the impact of rapid payments innovation on consumers, according to Thomas Ward, a partner at Sidley Austin in Washington who was an enforcement director at the bureau from February 2021 to May 2021.
The final FedNow rules announced today by the Federal Reserve Board lack protection against scams and fraud, which, if unaddressed, could leave consumers exposed when the payment service launches next year, warns advocates at the National Consumer Law Center, National Consumers League, and National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) warn. “An instant payments service like FedNow can have a lot of benefits to consumers. The coming FedNow service will prevent instant payments from being controlled by the largest banks, but fraud protection is critical and is sorely missing,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center.
Arkose Labs, the global leader in fraud deterrence and account security, released new insights, shining a light into the corners of the expanding global fraud economy. Data in the Q2 2022 State of Fraud & Account Security report shows specific attack attempts skyrocketed, fraud "employment" increased tenfold, and fraud returns for the "Master Fraudster" can be 8X higher than salaries for CEOs leading legitimate companies.
After a turbulent two years, new research from the Mastercard Economics Institute reveals that global leisure and business flight bookings1 have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, while spending on cruise lines, buses and trains saw sharp improvements this year. Released today, Travel 2022: Trends and Transitions delivers critical insights across 37 markets about the global state of travel in a post-vaccine and less restricted chapter of the pandemic era.
The ties that bind the global economy together, and delivered goods in abundance across the world, are unraveling at a frightening pace. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s Covid Zero lockdowns are disrupting supply chains, hammering growth and pushing inflation to forty-year highs. They’re the chief reasons why Bloomberg Economics has lopped $1.6 trillion off its forecast for global GDP in 2022. But what if that’s just an initial hit? War and plague won’t last forever. But the underlying problem – a world increasingly divided along geopolitical fault lines — only looks set to get worse.
How well is the American consumer holding up against sky-high inflation? It depends on whom you ask. Four major retailers — Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s — reported quarterly financial results this week, and they each offered a different perspective on where and how people are spending their money. Walmart said some of its more price-sensitive customers are beginning to trade down to private-label brands, while Home Depot emphasized the resiliency among its customer base, a sizable percentage of which is professional home builders and contractors.
Square has acquired GoParrot, an all-in-one digital ordering and marketing platform for restaurants. GoParrot enables restaurants to connect more easily and directly with customers through powerful omnichannel software. As a long-time Square partner, GoParrot’s products already integrate with Square’s ecosystem of solutions. With GoParrot, Square sellers can offer an exceptional customer experience with a customizable white-label app that merchants can design to be unique to their brand.
The metaverse is opening a new frontier of opportunities in the digital economy. As a financial technology leader, FIS® is creating a bridge from physical to digital and looking to enhance customer experience for businesses that are innovating in this nascent market. At its annual client event FIS Emerald 2022, FIS launched the FIS metastore, which brought the virtual metaverse world into a physical space to provide attendees with hands on experience with crypto and explore possibilities for new revenue streams and new customer experiences via the meta world.
Ingenico, a Worldline brand, and Ant Group announced details of their partnership that will allow acquirers and other payment service providers to implement Alipay+ seamlessly across their merchant networks using Ingenico’s PPaaS (Payments Platform as a Service) cloud-based solution. PPaaS, leverages the power of the payments ecosystem by combining payments with added-value services for the new world of commerce.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced a new partnership with Strive Gaming, an advanced player account management (PAM) platform designed for the multi-state requirements of online operators in the North American market. The partnership with Paysafe follows Strive Gaming’s recently unveiled collaboration with longstanding Paysafe partner Golden Nugget Online Gaming in the U.S. state of Arizona and the Canadian province of Ontario.
Wells Fargo Center has selected Shift4, the leader in integrated payments and commerce technology, to process payments for all of its online and in-person ticketing, food and beverage concessions, and retail sales. Home to the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers, Wells Fargo Center was ranked No. 2 in the U.S. and No. 6 in the world for number of tickets sold at a venue of its size. The venue hosts over 250 events and millions of fans each year.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, today announced SunStream Business Services, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, will move to Fiserv to meet the complex loan servicing needs of its shareholders and react more quickly to regulatory and compliance updates. SunStream Business Services provides business and technology services to Farm Credit Entities throughout the Farm Credit System.
CardFlight, a leading SaaS payment technology company serving small businesses, today announced the addition of Eli Entin, Vice President of Product, Liam Mahoney, Vice President of People, Christopher Anderson, Senior Director of Information Technology (IT), and Vera Miller, Senior Director of Customer Operations, to an expanding and motivated executive leadership team. “Our greatest strength is our team. Every day our team contributes to CardFlight’s strategic growth goals by delivering exceptional work for all of our clients and each other,” said Derek Webster, CardFlight Founder and CEO.
Global payment service provider, Computop, is this month celebrating a quarter of a century since it was first established. In 1997 when online commerce was still in its infancy, secure payment was a matter of luck, which prompted Computop founders Frank Arnoldt and Ralf Gladis to devise a secure and simple method of payment for the growing e-commerce sector. 25 years later, the company is now at the forefront of the industry and has a market share of over 30% in its native Germany.
Sphere, a leading provider of end-to-end integrated healthcare payments and security software, announced that it has launched a new payment solution for Independent Software Vendor (ISVs) that features integration with PAX terminals. PAX is the world's preferred payment terminal solutions provider and has delivered over 60 million terminals to more than 120 countries across the globe.
Corvia, Inc., a fintech company focused on making the complex simple by complementing world-class technology with strong business and regulatory acumen, announced it has added Repay Holdings Corporation , a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, as its newest payment processing partner. The relationship will provide additional fuel for Corvia’s aggressive growth trajectory by enhancing merchant and partner servicing and support in traditional retail and specialty e-commerce business segments.
