The Rise of eCommerce: Are Payment Gateways Ready? will walk through the process a start-up, small and medium-sized (SMB) merchant experienced when trying to create an online store during the course of the current global pandemic and the continued rise of eCommerce.
Attendees Will Learn:
The importance of a streamlined eCommerce merchant experience
Insights related to merchant applications, underwriting and pricing
What matters to start-up SMB merchants
Why the payment gateway market is more competitive than ever
How payment companies must adapt to the ‘new normal’
Shopify posted third-quarter earnings and sales that blew past analysts' forecasts as the coronavirus pandemic and surge in online shopping drove demand for the company's e-commerce software platform and services. The Ottawa-based tech company posted adjusted earnings of $133.2 million, or $1.13 a share, in the third quarter vs. a loss of $33.6 million, or 29 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet had been expecting per-share earnings of 52 cents a share. Revenue was $767.4 million in the quarter, up 96% from a year ago and well above analysts' forecasts of $657.8 million.
Visa Inc. may be bidding good riddance to a Covid-haunted fiscal 2020, but the giant payments network made it plain Wednesday afternoon it is looking forward to a very different fiscal 2021. “The pandemic is still with us,” noted Vasant Prabhu, the company’s chief financial officer, but “fiscal year 2021 will be a year of two different halves.” While the first half will continue to be burdened by Covid, the latter half will show rapid improvement as vaccines enter the market and mitigating measures around he world become less stringent, Prabhu told equity analysts during a conference call to discuss Visa’s fiscal fourth-quarter results.
Mastercard on Wednesday posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings as consumers continued to pivot away from cash and toward plastic for both online and in-person transactions, though a drop in travel and leisure activity due to the pandemic led to lower transactions and revenue. The Purchase, N.Y., company posted their-quarter adjusted income of $1.6 billion, or $1.60 a share, vs. $2.2 billion, or $2.15 a share, in the year-earlier quarter. The results were slightly better than the $1.65 a share consensus forecast in a survey by FactSet.
On a GAAP basis, revenue increased 13% to $3,197 million, primarily due to the July 31, 2019 acquisition of Worldpay, Inc. (Worldpay). Net earnings attributable to common stockholders was $20 million or $0.03 per diluted share. On an organic basis, revenue increased 1% as compared to the prior year period, primarily due to consumer spending trends associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “COVID-19 has greatly influenced how businesses must interact with their customers in order to survive and thrive,” said Gary Norcross, FIS chairman, president and chief executive officer.
GAAP revenue for the company increased 21% to $3.79 billion in the third quarter, with 44% growth in the Acceptance segment, 1% decline in the Fintech segment and 20% growth in the Payments segment. "Fiserv again delivered excellent financial results and free cash flow in an environment that continues to be impacted by a global pandemic,” said Frank Bisignano, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv. “Our focus on serving clients with excellence has never been more important and has translated to another strong quarter of robust sales growth and continuing revenue momentum.”
“We are pleased with our results for the third quarter, which demonstrate substantial ongoing improvement across our markets and significant margin expansion for each of our segments," said Jeff Sloan, Chief Executive Officer. "These results validate the actions we took at the start of the pandemic to position our businesses and return to growth. We are grateful to our team members for their extraordinary commitments to our customers, to each other and to the communities in which they live and work during this difficult time."
Apple CEO Tim Cook on an earnings call Thursday said the coronavirus gave Apple Pay and other contactless solutions a boost, adding that the pandemic fundamentally changes consumers' approach to payments. During Apple's fourth quarter earnings call, Cook touted financial success built on double-digit gains in every major hardware category except for iPhone. Cook also praised the company's digital services, a category that includes payment products like Apple Pay and Apple Card. "We continue to be very enthusiastic about the whole payment services area," Cook said. "Apple Card is is doing well and Apple Pay is doing exceptionally well, as you can imagine in this environment people are less [willing] to hand over a card."
May require account to read. Consumers are spending money as if the coronavirus recession is over. But they are also paying down old debts and avoiding new ones in case the pandemic lasts a while. That is the discordant picture of the U.S. economy that emerged from third-quarter earnings reports from some of the country’s largest credit-card issuers. Capital One Financial Corp. , Discover Financial Services and Synchrony Financial reported last week that, starting in September, the volume of purchases made by their customers increased from the relevant period a year earlier, a first since the coronavirus forced swaths of businesses to close their doors in March and a severe recession took hold.
Coinbase has announced that US customers can now join the waitlist for its Coinbase Card, a debit Visa card that allows customers to spend cryptocurrency anywhere Visa cards are accepted. Coinbase claims it’s “the easiest, quickest way to spend your crypto worldwide.” Previously, the card was only available in Europe. There are a number of debit cards around the world that allow you to spend cryptocurrency (you’ll soon be able to do so with Paypal as well). But many platforms require you to load funds onto the card in order to spend them.
While Bitcoin is too volatile for mass usage, said Banga, it’s “central bank digital currencies we’re believers in.” Mastercard is now “one of the largest patent holders in the space of central bank digital currencies,” he added. Mastercard recently rolled out a set of tools for banks exploring the technology. “I believe that fiat currencies, if they were to go digital, would they be helpful in cross-border trading flows and improving the efficiency of those?” explained Banga, “Yes, for sure.”
After years of hype with little to show for it, blockchain technology is on the cusp of a breakthrough: making money in actual business applications. At JPMorgan Chase, the firm’s digital currency JPM Coin is being used commercially for the first time this week by a large technology client to send payments around the world, said Takis Georgakopoulos, the bank’s global head of wholesale payments. That development, along with other behind-the-scene moves, persuaded JPMorgan to create a new business to house its blockchain and digital currency efforts called Onyx, Georgakopoulos said last week in a phone interview
Ant Group would raise $34.5 billion in its dual initial public offering after setting the price for its shares on Monday, making it the biggest listing of all time. The Chinese financial technology giant previously said it would split its stock issuance equally across Shanghai and Hong Kong, issuing 1.67 billion new shares in each location. Ant Group’s Shanghai-listed shares will be priced at 68.8 yuan each. The issuing of 1.67 billion shares would raise 114.94 billion yuan or $17.23 billion, according to the exchange rate listed in the official filings.
The Chinese financial technology firm Lufax Holding Ltd. raised $2.4 billion in a U.S. initial public offering priced at the top of an indicative range, just days after U.S. stocks suffered their biggest drop since June. The company sold 175 million American depositary shares for $13.50 each, it said in a statement Friday. The amount raised makes Lufax’s offering one of the biggest IPOs by a Chinese company in the U.S. this year. Lufax, which is backed by China’s largest insurer by market value, Ping An Insurance Group Co., marketed its American depositary shares for $11.50 to $13.50 each. Two ADS represent one ordinary share.
Stripe, the digital payments startup, wants its customers to get in the carbon removal business. Through a new tool called Stripe Climate, the first of its kind for online businesses, users can contribute a fraction of their revenue to projects that permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere—something that’s necessary for the world to do in order to meet climate goals, even if emissions shrink to zero.
It’s not just big tech that’s getting the antitrust treatment from the Department of Justice.
Late Monday afternoon, the Department of Justice tipped its hand that it was investigating Visa’s proposed $5.3 billion acquisition of the venture-backed Plaid, which allows applications to connect with a user’s bank account. It’s a tool that powers a good chunk of new fintech offerings, and the Justice Department has apparently spent the past year looking into how the deal would affect the broader market for new financial services coming from startups.
May require account to read. Many financial institutions looking to offer banking services to the expanding number of legal cannabis growers and distributors in the U.S. are still limited by spotty regulations and expensive compliance efforts. The disparities between federal and state laws governing the use of marijuana and hemp, and the differences across states, are inhibiting banks from stepping into what has become a lucrative and legal business in many areas. Regulators have issued scant guidance and some of the existing advisories are outdated or set few clear obligations for banks, such as information that a bank should ask for from potential clients, financial institutions say.
So far, much of the discussion about 5G security has focused on avoiding the use of technology from Chinese manufacturers, including Huawei and ZTE, to minimize the risk of China spying on users. But security experts are increasingly concerned that 5G network and device providers rushing products to market aren't devoting enough attention to security. "Anytime you see a rush to market, we are not well poised for security," says Charles Henderson, global head of IBM's X-Force Red. "As an industry, we must position security above all else."
Home Depot has exposed the private order confirmations of hundreds of Canadian consumers, containing names, physical addresses, email addresses, order details and partial credit-card information. After customers began reporting that they had received hundreds of emails from the home-improvement giant, each containing an order confirmation for a stranger, the company confirmed the issue.
The U.S. economy grew at a historic pace in the third quarter as the government injected more than $3 trillion worth of pandemic relief which fueled consumer spending, but the deep scars from the COVID-19 recession could take a year or more to heal. The 33.1% annualized growth rate reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday, the last major economic scorecard before next Tuesday’s presidential election, did not ease the human tragedy inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, with tens of millions of Americans still unemployed and more than 222,000 dead.
The accelerated shift to e-commerce due to the pandemic will have a significant impact on U.S. online holiday sales, according to a new forecast from Adobe Analytics. Adobe Analytics predicts that U.S. online sales for the months of November and December 2020 will reach $189 billion, representing a 33% year-over-year increase and setting a new record. The forecast is also equal to two years of growth in one season, Adobe says, noting that the increase in 2019 was just 13%.
2020 has been a year like no other for consumers and retailers alike. While that won’t stop families from celebrating the holidays, it will impact how, where and when consumers spend. According to Mastercard SpendingPulse™, which measures overall retail sales across all payment types including cash and check, the holiday shopping season is already well underway, having kicked off in mid-October amidst major cyber promotions.
In a sign that the labor market is slowly continuing to improve, 751,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday in its last report before the presidential election. That's down 40,000 from the prior week, which was revised slightly higher. These figures reflect seasonal adjustments. Unemployment claims have been drifting downward in recent months, but they remain far higher than they were prior to the pandemic. In recent weeks they have fallen below 800,000 for the first time since claims first spiked in March as coronavirus-fueled shutdowns began.
By combining forces with Ingenico, Worldline will become Europe’s new world-class leader in payment services and joins the league of international payment leaders. Worldline is committed to operating payment solutions that enable viable economic growth and reinforce trust and security in our societies. With its global footprint and its dedication to excellence, innovation and sustainability, Worldline is set to accelerate the development of the European payments industry, further shaping new ways of paying, living and doing business.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CPS Payment Services (“CPS”) for up to $93 million, of which $78 million will be paid at closing. The acquisition will be financed with cash on hand. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to certain customary closing conditions.
Alliance Data Systems is the latest big player to jump on the buy now, pay later (BNPL) consumer finance trend. Alliance, which provides co-branded and private-label credit cards, announced on Thursday (Oct. 29) that it will acquire Bread and its digital payments platform for $450 million, including $100 million of the company’s common stock. Through the deal, Alliance said its brand partners will have the option of offering installment payment options. Columbus, Ohio-based Alliance expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter, at which time it will bring on board New York-based Bread’s 185 employees and the firm’s portfolio of more than 400 retail clients.
Celero Commerce (“Celero”), a vertically-focused commerce solutions provider, announced the acquisition of TransNational Payments, a leading provider of electronic payments technology and business management SaaS solutions. With the addition of TransNational, Celero now serves approximately 40,000 merchants, 150 financial institutions, and processes more than $14 billion of card volume annually, making it a top 10 non-bank payment processor in the United States.
Discover cardmembers and merchants can now experience a more seamless and consistent checkout experience when shopping online or through a mobile app with the launch of Click to Pay. The digital payment solution, based on the EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) industry standard, replaces the need for cardmembers to manually enter personal and account information at checkout with participating merchants. An easier and frictionless checkout process enhances the customer experience and also helps merchants reduce cart abandonment.
Over half (54%) of US consumers and 44% of Canadians are shopping far more online during the current pandemic, according to new research from Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform. The company’s data reveals that North American consumers have also increased their use of contactless card payments in store. The sharp rise in eCommerce in North America has been driven by two main factors, according to Paysafe’s latest ‘Lost in Transaction’ research carried out in the US, Canada and five European countries (UK, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Bulgaria) between April 8th-15th, 2020.
Restaurants using Clover's point-of-sale platform from Fiserv Inc. are now able to offer guests a touchless experience from order to payment. The new "Scan to Order" feature for Clover-equipped restaurants gives guests the ability to scan a Clover-generated QR code with a smartphone camera, access a digital menu, select their orders and securely pay, all within a touchless, digital environment, according to a press release.
Paya, a leading provider of integrated payment and commerce solutions, has announced that it has partnered with Artis Technologies, a provider of modern lending solutions for businesses to offer affordable, low-friction financing to their customers at the point of need. Through this partnership, Paya’s payments technology will integrate directly into the Artis Connect and Artis Credit platforms, providing a seamless payment experience for businesses offering real-time consumer financing.
Bluefin, the leading provider of payment and data security technologies, including PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) and ShieldConex® data tokenization, announced $25 million in growth financing led by Macquarie Capital Principal Finance (“Macquarie”), a division of Macquarie Group Limited. Macquarie Group is a global financial services group operating in 31 markets in asset management, retail and business banking, wealth management, leasing and asset financing, market access, commodity trading, renewables development, investment banking and principal investment.
ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time digital payment software and solutions, announced it is extending its partnership with Aegean Airlines to drive further revenue growth and fight the growing threat of online fraud. The Greek flagship carrier will enhance its online fraud management and prevention efforts by leveraging the ACI Secure eCommerce solution, which offers the airline a multi-layered fraud strategy that uses a combination of consortium intelligence, profiling, machine learning and rules—a powerful approach that enables merchants to separate legitimate customers from fraudsters.
Payoneer, the digital payment platform empowering businesses around the world to grow globally, announced the worldwide availability of Green Channel, a matching and onboarding program designed to connect marketplaces with top merchants that have been pre-screened by the company’s robust fraud prevention and compliance capabilities. The service empowers marketplaces to grow their inventory rapidly by bringing on high-quality cross-border sellers, while also helping those sellers to expand into new markets quickly and seamlessly – combining to create a trusted ecosystem for cross-border business.
PayCertify, the innovative payments platform, announced that Tim Murphy has joined the rapidly growing team as chief operating officer. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in global payments systems and risk management, including past roles with PayPal, eBay and Visa. Murphy has a track record of leading global payment companies through exponential growth. As PayCertify continues to strengthen its position in the fintech market, he will play a crucial role in scaling the PayCertify platform, expanding its global footprint, and ensuring risk management and compliance capabilities grow with the company.
Boom Commerce, leading provider of electronic payment processing products and services, has announced a strategic investment in top point-of-sale (POS) technology company, Ovvi (formerly POSsible POS). Ovvi is a market leader in fully integrated POS hardware, software and payment processing solutions customized for a wide variety of merchants and verticals, including restaurants, bars, lounges, retail, liquor stores, convenience stores and grocery stores.
Centrapay is partnering with Verifone to deliver a new contactless payment platform that removes the per transaction fee businesses in New Zealand typically pay. Centrapay and Verifone have combined multiple technologies to allow traditional and new financial applications to work together. The technology is centered on personalizing the merchant and consumer payment experience.
Online lender Social Finance has received preliminary approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over its application for a national bank charter and launched its first credit card. SoFi started life as a student loan financing outfit but in recent years has been expanding aggressively. Earlier this year it paid $1.2 billion for financial services API and payments platform Galileo Financial Services. In 2017 it bought mobile banking outfit Zenbanx and last year it teamed up with Coinbase as it moved to add the ability to trade cryptocurrencies within the overall SoFi Invest platform.
Rapyd, a global Fintech as a Service company, has launched its ‘all-in-one’ payment capabilities in South Korea. By partnering with leading Korean payment service providers, KCP, PayLetter and others, Rapyd now provides access to a robust and comprehensive suite of South Korean payment options across international and local cards (Hyundai Card, Shinhan Card, Samsung Card), mobile wallets (Kakao Pay, Samsung Pay, Toss, and PAYCO), bank transfers, vouchers, and carrier billing.
Stuzo, the leading provider of intelligent 1:1 loyalty, contactless commerce, and modern digital storefront technology for Convenience and Fuel Retailers, announced that NCR Corporation has certified its Open Commerce® Transact product, inclusive of its Mobile Payment Processing Application (MPPA) with NCR's point of sale systems for contactless digital payments. "Given today's environment, retailer priorities have shifted to removing physical contact with hardware wherever possible," said Gunter Pfau, Founder and CEO, Stuzo.
USA Technologies, Inc., a cashless payments and software services company that provides end-to-end technology solutions for the self-service retail market, announces it has enhanced its ePort product family. USAT’s ePort G10-Chip reader is EMV certified and accepts contact EMV (chip cards) and contactless EMV (tap) payment methods. The company also announces it has completed a free over-the-air upgrade to its ePort G10-S to enable acceptance of contactless EMV payments.
dLocal has expanded its payments network to include Kenya, Senegal, Ghana, and Cameroon, while adding new integration partners in Nigeria and Egypt. According to the press release, the expansion comes after the company announced its expansion in Latin America and the Caribbean, with Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, and Panama, bringing the total number of countries in which dLocal operates to 26.
BlueVine, the leading provider of small business banking solutions, announced the general availability of BlueVine Business Banking, the industry’s first integrated banking, payments, and lending solution designed specifically for small businesses. BlueVine Business Banking was introduced in October 2019 and offers intuitive online services and tools that help small businesses manage their finances with an easy-to-use dashboard to deposit checks, transfer funds, and now, make bill and vendor payments.
