John Adams

An acquisition of the social app would bring with it users and data that can fuel Walmart, Microsoft or Oracle’s e-commerce and marketing battles against top competitors.

Several months after the pandemic took hold, Diebold Nixdorf and NCR have adopted an ATM recovery strategy that stresses contactless access as well as innovations that are similar to other industries that traditionally rely on kiosks.

Checkout-free retail is still not ready to move out of tiny spaces, though Amazon’s trying to accelerate progress through a trio of initiatives that have come to light over the past few weeks.

Brad Windbigler, treasurer at Western Union, talks to us about how the company navigated the challenges of the pandemic — particularly as the global nature of its network meant it had to contend with moving money across parts of the world that recovered at vastly different rates from one another.

The 2020 election has tossed the U.S. Postal Service under extreme scrutiny, pressuring the institution at a time when it has become a potential catalyst for financial inclusion.

Part of the coronavirus’s economic story is the sudden boom in installment payment services — a sure sign of consumers and merchants wanting a haven from revolving debt. But the rush to simpler credit is also a reflection of how the crisis has changed the way people are living and managing their lives.

The global digital currency race has heightened the threat to traditional monetary policy and the dollar’s dominance, enough for the Federal Reserve of Boston to make a concerted effort to keep pace.

7-Eleven’s not a quick serve restaurant chain or an e-commerce marketplace, but it still found substantial use for its app as a way to quickly address the health worries of its customers.

By slicing clutter out of international payments, Ripple managed to turn rivals into partners once before. It hopes a hunger for sharable authentication can make that happen again.

The past few months have provided no shortage of crises that call out for faster access to funds, giving developers a new impetus to hasten transaction processing.

An obscure government initiative tied to Obamacare’s troubled online rollout could position Sen. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's running mate, as a key figure in modernizing government stimulus and disbursement payments.

Stripe is expanding its digital payment technology into new industries, and is also welcoming a series of notable executives with backgrounds that are mostly outside merchant technology. But they also have experience with much larger companies, a necessary skill as Stripe tries to grow out of its status as fintech upstart.

For ‘big tech’ bundling is the new battle — and a driving factor for Facebook, which is corralling several of its commerce divisions to show its substantial network of users how much they can do without leaving the social network.

Schools are still figuring out how they will open this fall, with some districts providing online education while others try a hybrid approach of online and in-person instruction. This complicated structure also upends how schools handle fees and payments.

PayPal is improving its ability to reach innovators, adding a key executive in its recent hire of former Wells Fargo senior vice president and fintech veteran Peggy Mangot to be operating partner at PayPal Ventures, PayPal’s VC team.

The point of sale terminal industry was already under pressure to go digital before the coronavirus pandemic made this transition much more crucial to its survival.

The major card networks have heavily invested in broader services as transaction processing loses its luster, a strategy that’s provided a ray of hope as retail and travel industries remain sidelined.

A public listing would improve Affirm’s competitive position against other point of sale credit providers, which have made recent deals to cement their scale among global merchants.

Mastercard reported a sharp decline in payments in its most recent quarter, but some digital seeds it planted before the coronavirus pandemic are already bearing fruit.

The coronavirus outbreak has caused economic activity to crater, and Visa says its focus on services, partnerships and e-commerce has provided stability and a route to growth.