Merchant

Changing political and economic forces are raising new questions about deployment of tax savings and the cost of deposits, while old concerns about cost-cutting, credit quality and risk-taking persist or return.

Merchants have been challenging surcharge bans in numerous states on free-speech grounds. They have the wind at their backs following another court victory on Wednesday.

The debit card is growing in popularity in the U.S. for retail transactions, and consequently FIs are making debit a top priority. However, the strength of debit is a double-edged sword.

Cybersecurity systems, as sophisticated as they are, are clearly not doing the job. And maybe they never will, given that in the end the effectiveness of those systems can be overridden by workers inside the organization, writes Tal Vegvizer, director of research and development for Bufferzone.

For payments to keep up, merchants need to focus on the shift to subscriptions and the true personalization of processing, writes Suneera Madhani, CEO and founder of Fattmerchant.

Commercial customers, including small businesses, seem ready to pay up to shift to faster, more sophisticated electronic invoicing and payments, and enterprising banks that provide them the technology to do so could find it lucrative.

Five more retailers have dropped out of the American Express-managed Plenti retailer coalition loyalty program, putting its status in question.

The rise of e-commerce is hollowing out shopping malls and strip centers, but it is also creating new interesting opportunities for commercial real estate developers and lenders.

Compliance checks today are not continuous or automatic, even in the largest of global enterprises. Traditionally, compliance audits are performed by organizations just once a year when, in reality, they need to be continuous in order to be effective, writes Manoj Asnani, lead of product and design for Balbix.

While interest from the West has so far been tepid in the region, this is an opportune time for fintech investors to look at participation in the Southeast Asian market, writes Alexander Koles, CEO and founder of Evolve Capital Partners.