Merchant

COVID-19 has accelerated changes in payments behavior that would otherwise have taken years to occur, laying the foundation for global expansion post-pandemic. But for different parts of the world, this digital transformation had very different outcomes.

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.

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 humble QR code — invented for automobile manufacturing in 1994 — had been on the rise as a payment method for many years, but the pandemic expanded its use in the U.S. in some unforeseen ways.

Small and midsize banks would pay for access to the Monit app and offer it to small-business clients as an add-on service.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced retailers and consumers alike to consider the benefits of shopping via a mobile app, providers of shopping and loyalty apps were seeking partnerships with security vendors to deploy fraud prevention technology.

Apple's legal dispute with Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, has exposed a potential nuclear option that the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant can use against any company that sells online.

Besides providing a safe, sanitary no-touch payment option for consumers, there are other advantages to contactless payments, such as line-busting, says Todd Barstow, vice president of payment solutions for GK Software USA.

With only a fraction of the funds allocated being used, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is considering tweaks to the middle-market rescue program in an appeal to lenders wary of taking on added risk.

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