Walmart

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.

Walmart’s membership service undercuts Amazon Prime on price and offers myriad perks, including access to streamlined checkout and deliveries — two areas where Walmart has struggled in the past.

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.

It took years for NFC payments to gather momentum in the U.S., with merchants initially dragging their heels to enable contactless technology at payment terminals and banks waiting until 2018 to begin the slow rollout of NFC-enabled cards.

Walmart Inc. has partnered with e-commerce giant Shopify Inc. to expand its third-party marketplace site and grab more of the pandemic-fueled surge in online shopping. Shares of the Canadian technology company rose on Monday.

The reloadable debit card resembles a bank account with new high-yield savings account and other tweaks.

Amazon, Walmart and Facebook are using point of sale credit, deliveries and in-app payments to outflank Paytm in India, honing services that they see as vital to shaping the global economy's recovery.

Former Walmart payments executive Reed Luhtanen has been named the new executive director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an organization created a year ago to guide American faster payments initiatives.

Growing recognition that coronavirus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours — making it riskier to use PIN pads and touchscreens at the point of sale — is causing merchants around the world to rethink payment technology, especially at supermarkets.

The company's plan had drawn strong criticism from bankers about Rakuten's potentially controlling an industrial loan company while engaging in its nonfinancial businesses.