John Adams

The months-long saga of Bytedance’s forced sale of TikTok in the U.S. is finally close to the finish line, and Walmart stands to gain new social tools and youthful consumers in its battle with Amazon and other brick and mortar chains.

The pandemic and subsequent economic crisis have raised the stakes, since the government’s role in recovery and how stimulus is delivered — and policies impacting the goals of card and technology companies — will be largely determined by the philosophy of leadership.

The Trump administration has barred the use of TikTok and WeChat inside the U.S., including a direct ban on WeChat Pay, setting up potential retaliation against U.S. companies that could interrupt international payment flows.

As more consumers look for alternatives to credit cards, investors are flocking to point of sale credit firms, with Affirm raising a fresh $500 million.

The pandemic has upended many business tasks, creating a rush among processors to expand the digital experience without complicating it.

Dodger Stadium looks odd now — filled with fake crowd noise and cardboard cutout spectators — but in this downtime it's putting in an almost entirely invisible 5G wireless connection and new point of sale system.

The controversial TikTok U.S. divestiture is inching toward a conclusion, but the battle over how and where data is collected has become a geopolitical barrier to international e-commerce growth that goes far beyond the Chinese video-sharing app.

It could take years for the air travel industry to recover from the pandemic, but some of the airlines' responses could fuel other payment streams.

For the dozens of technology companies trying to enable shopping without point of sale terminals, making it work in a full-sized store is the path to disruption. But the coronavirus pandemic flipped the script, bringing disruption well before the technology was ready.

The upcoming U.S. election could move the cannabis industry closer to the mainstream, but legal dispensaries will still have to deal with workarounds to accept card or mobile payments.