While the payments super-unicorn Stripe expects growth this year, it won't be as strong as last year when the company benefited from an e-commerce surge spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an annual letter from its cofounders, Patrick and John Collison. In an April 8 annual letter to their "community," the Collisons said Stripe collectively processed more than $640 billion in payments last year for a year-over-year increase of 60%. The letter further explains that "since a lot of this came from one-time behavioral adjustments caused by the pandemic, 2022 won’t match the same level of growth."
Wall Street's biggest players have had a rough start to the year. All of the biggest US banks saw profits take a hit in the first three months of 2022, ending a pandemic-era boom. Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo all announced large year-over-year profit declines in their first-quarter earnings reports Thursday, joining JPMorgan Chase, which announced Wednesday that its first-quarter profit fell 42%. Citi saw a drop of 46%, Goldman Sachs fell 42%, Morgan Stanley dropped 11% and Wells Fargo fell 21%.
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) celebrated the 2022 ETA Star Awards this week at TRANSACT. The awards recognize individuals and companies making significant strides in the payments technology industry through innovative business practices and contributions to the association. “It was an honor to celebrate the titans and leaders in the payments industry and pay tribute to their invaluable impact,” said Jodie Kelley, president of ETA. “Thank you to this diverse group of professionals for their leadership in advancing new customer experiences, contributions to our association and their service to the industry and their community.”
The buy now, pay later trend continues to solidify into a permanent part of the payments arena, thanks to consumers who readily adopt the installment-payment service. Now, new research finds that many—82%—are drawn to it because they do not have to pay interest for the installment-payment benefit. New research from The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments-research firm, concludes that the absence of interest charges is the top draw for consumers to a BNPL plan. Other top five features are: an easy return policy, 80%; no late fees, 76%; a short application process, 75%; and the availability of an app, 65%. These and other drivers provide consumers with incentives to try a BNPL service.
What do Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg and Ashton Kutcher all have in common? Aside from being A-list celebrities, they’re among more than 60 new investors in fintech startup MoonPay. Founded in 2018, the Miami-based company’s software lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers or mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. MoonPay also sells its technology to other businesses including crypto website Bitcoin.com and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, a model CEO Ivan Soto-Wright calls “crypto-as-a-service.”
Countries with more corruption tend to have more people using cryptocurrencies. So said a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) study that surveyed thousands of people in 55 countries. When those countries also have strong capital controls that make it harder to transfer money abroad quietly, there are even more crypto users. As a result, the alliterative authors of “Crypto, Corruption, and Capital Controls: Cross-Country Correlations” conclude that crypto-assets are likely used to move ill-gotten gains abroad.
This week, Square unveiled the next generation of Square Stand, the company’s iconic countertop device that turns an iPad into a powerful, robust point of sale system that sellers can use to run their entire business. Launching concurrently in all of Square’s eight global markets, Square Stand features integrated contactless and dip payments technology, a sleek, professional design, and a new checkout flow that provides businesses and their customers with a more intuitive, transparent, and streamlined commerce experience.
Patrick Paumen causes a stir whenever he pays for something in a shop or restaurant. This is because the 37-year-old doesn't need to use a bank card or his mobile phone to pay. Instead, he simply places his left hand near the contactless card reader, and the payment goes through. "The reactions I get from cashiers are priceless!" says Mr Paumen, a security guard from the Netherlands. He is able to pay using his hand because back in 2019 he had a contactless payment microchip injected under his skin.
Amazon announced it will bring its cashier-free checkout technology, Just Walk Out, to a Major League Baseball stadium for the first time. MLB team Houston Astros will introduce the Just Walk Out system to two stores at Minute Maid Park, allowing fans to purchase food and beverages. 19th Hole and Market, two food and beverage stands at the Astros’ home stadium, will use Just Walk out, which relies on A.I., sensors and computer vision to allow customers to shop without checking out, avoiding long checkout lines.
Payments giant Mastercard has filed 15 nonfungible token (NFT) and metaverse trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO. Highlights of the filings include plans for a virtual community for interacting with digital assets, the processing of payment cards in the Metaverse, an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of downloadable digital goods, virtual reality events and more.
PayPal is losing its chief financial officer to retail behemoth Walmart following a difficult end to 2021. San Jose, California-based PayPal said in a press release Tuesday that Chief Financial Officer John Rainey would remain at the company through late next month before departing to join Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart. Rainey, who was also executive vice president of global customer operations, had been at PayPal for nearly seven years. Walmart said Rainey will start on June 6.
Amazon is blaming rising fuel costs and inflation for its decision to impose an average 5% surcharge on merchants to store and ship their products in the United States, Reuters reported Wednesday (April 13). The price increase marks the company’s first such surcharge and comes after months of rising wage- and labor-related costs that have cut into the retail mammoth’s profits, the report stated. Beginning April 28, Amazon said it will charge an average 24 cents more per unit it stores and ships using its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to make it easier for people to spend and make money on virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, which is an an integral part of Meta’s plan for creating a so-called “metaverse.” In a video published late Monday as part of a blogpost, the tech billionaire said that Meta is testing new tools that allow creators to sell virtual assets and experiences within the worlds they build on Horizon. “The ability to sell virtual items and access to things inside the worlds is a new part of [the] e-commerce equation overall,” Zuckerberg said.
Rising gas prices, Omicron and ongoing supply chain and labor challenges made for tough going for some — but not all — retailers in the first quarter of 2022. Some retailers were able to outperform others in the sector in spite of those challenges, according to a new report from foot traffic analytics firm Placer.ai. The report names Target, Costco, The Home Depot, Starbucks, and Dollar General as the quarter’s winners, along with Planet Fitness and AMC Theatres.
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu, last Friday delivered remarks at the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown University Law Center on developing a path forward for U.S.-backed stablecoins, leading to regulatory and security questions as the technology expands. Hsu said stablecoins posed challenges, including their stability for the long haul, and he probed whether the digital currency could be interoperable.
In the biggest change to payments regulation since the roll out of Chip & Pin in 2006, all online transactions over £25 have been subject to two-factor authentication checks since 14th March, to help combat online fraud. Data from Barclaycard Payments, which processes £1 in every £3 spent on credit and debit cards in the UK, shows that over 22,000 transactions a day, worth £4.3m, have been declined in the month since SCA became mandatory.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is filing a lawsuit against TransUnion, two of its subsidiaries, and longtime executive John Danaher for violating a 2017 law enforcement order. The order was issued to stop the company from engaging in deceptive marketing, regarding its credit scores and other credit-related products. After the order went into effect, TransUnion continued its unlawful behavior, disregarded the order’s requirements, and continued employing deceitful digital dark patterns to profit from customers.
The new data released on April 8 in a report titled "The 2021 State Of Enterprise Breaches," found that the number of breaches and the cost of breaches varied widely depending on the geographic location of the business and to what degree the organization is prepared to respond to breaches. Companies in North America had the largest disparity between the haves and have-nots: While the average organization required 38 days to find, eradicate, and recover from a breach, companies that failed to adequately prepare for security challenges took 62 days.
Consumers continued to spend in March even as inflation rose to its highest level since late 1981, according to government data released Thursday. Retail sales climbed 0.5% from the previous month, slightly less than the 0.6% Dow Jones estimate and a deceleration from the upwardly revised 0.8% gain in February. The move came with inflation rising 1.2% for the month as measured by the consumer price index.
Wall Street's major banks and asset managers were cautious about the economy as they detailed how both consumers and institutional clients were struggling to deal with sky-high inflation and looming rate hikes. The big U.S. banks are reporting results at a time of surging inflation, which could lead the Fed to hike interest rates more aggressively this year. While that can benefit big lenders by increasing what they earn from loans, rapid rate hikes could slow the economy and scupper a nascent recovery from the pandemic.
Warning lights are flashing for the U.S. economy. A growing number of forecasters now believe a recession is on the horizon as the Federal Reserve gears up to raise interest rates sharply to combat the highest inflation in more than 40 years. It's an unusual outlook at a time when the economy is strong by many measures. Employers have added nearly 6.5 million jobs in the last 12 months and unemployment has fallen to just 3.6%.
The number of people seeking unemployment benefits ticked up last week but remained at a historically low level, reflecting a robust U.S. labor market with near record-high job openings and few layoffs. Jobless claims rose by 18,000 to 185,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, after nearly touching the lowest level since 1968 in the previous week. The four-week average of claims, which levels out week-to-week ups and downs, edged up from 170,000 to 172,000.
The Bank of America Institute published a new article which provides evidence that consumers’ finances, particularly of those in lower-income groups, are holding up, contrary to findings of sentiment surveys about the impact of higher prices. Citing strong growth in credit and debit card spending – up 11% year over year in March, and continued strength into April – as well as a booming labor market and elevated cash levels in checking and savings accounts, the data shows that lower-income consumers are not reacting to this inflationary environment as adversely as one might gather from reports.
FIS® announced it has teamed with Fireblocks to accelerate crypto adoption within the capital markets industry by enabling firms of all types to access the largest crypto trading venues, liquidity providers, lending desks and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
A recent study found that 69 percent of institutional investors in the U.S. would like to adopt digital assets as a part of their investment portfolio.
PayArc, a leading payments technology company formed by co-founders Zachary Martinez and Jared Ronski, has announced a strategic investment from Bregal Sagemount, a private equity firm providing capital and strategic assistance to companies in high-growth sectors. PayArc will use this first round of financing to invest in new sales and marketing channels, target strategic acquisitions, and expand its value proposition to all constituents. “We built a business with a soul that cares just as much about its employees as its agent partners and customers,” said Mr. Martinez, CEO of PayArc.
Mastercard announced a new partnership with Interos, the hyper-growth operational resilience company, to further expand its security strategy and bring Interos’ multi-tier risk monitoring capabilities to financial institutions. This new offering allows organizations to proactively detect and eliminate risk across multiple areas – including cyber, financial, ESG, restrictions, geopolitical and operational – throughout their network of business and merchant relationships.
American Express and Resy teamed up in March to support independent restaurants through ‘Every Resy Counts’, a month-long reservation drive as part of the Shop Small® campaign that encouraged people to dine out at local restaurants nationwide. The result: over 8.6 million reservations to 8,000+ restaurants made through Resy with a record 24.8 million diners enjoying a meal. The initiative showed that customers are returning to in-person dining in a big way – both for the food and to show up for their communities.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced its expanded partnership with Betsson Group, the international iGaming operator with multiple online sportsbook and casino brands, including Betsafe. Building on Paysafe’s longstanding payments support for Betsson globally, the company is now providing a range of traditional and alternative payment solutions to the new Betsafe online sportsbook for Colorado.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, announced that Arkansas Federal Credit Union has upgraded from their prior person-to-person (P2P) payment solution to the Zelle Network® via Fiserv. In the first two months post-launch, Arkansas Federal has seen P2P transaction volume increase by more than 200%, and active users grow by more than 120%. Within 60 days members completed approximately 6,500 Zelle® transactions totaling over $1.4 million dollars.
Fi911, the leading dispute specialists and sister brand of Chargebacks911, and Alpha Fintech, a fintech pioneer aiming to evolve and simplify payments, announce their partnership. APAC regional acquirers and PSPs will be able to leverage the unrivaled Fi911 SaaS dispute management platform (“DisputeLab”), delivering turnkey intelligent automation and end-to-end processing.
Everyware, a leading contactless payments and customer engagement solutions company, announced the unveiling of its Pay By Text functionality, which allows customers to use their cell phone number to make a payment. This new payment method is paving the industry's future by eliminating the need to share private payment card data. Through its collaboration with Visa, the world leader in digital payments, Everyware is leveraging Token ID - a Visa Solution, which empowers banks, merchants, regional payments schemes, clearing houses and other payments stakeholders like Everyware to build, manage and control their own tokenization capabilities.
BridgePay Network Solutions, LLC, aka BridgePay, a leading transaction gateway and payments solutions provider, announced its partnership with Visa, the world leader in digital payments, to provide network tokenization to its customers for all card brands to all payment processors. As part of the collaboration with Visa, BridgePay is leveraging Token ID - a Visa Solution, which empowers banks, merchants, regional payments schemes, clearing houses and other payments stakeholders like BridgePay to build, manage and control their own tokenization capabilities.
Paynt, a global payment provider, has launched an Acquiring-as-a-Service (AaaS) platform that combines and automates, via API or interface, functions required by payment service providers to onboard, manage, and retain merchants. This includes omni-channel payment acceptance capabilities, real-time reporting of merchant performance, and a heavily-automated onboarding flow that makes it possible to activate new merchant accounts in minutes.
