The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Amazon hits the curb
Amazon is adding a curbside pickup service at Whole Foods for its Prime members, as similar services take hold at rivals Kroger and Walmart.
Consumers can order groceries on the Prime Now app. The service starts this week in Sacramento and Virginia Beach and will gradually expand nationwide.
No room for friction
Canadian consumers have little patience for inconvenient shopping and checkout, with an abandonment rate of 53%.
Canadians are also interested in advanced in-store checkout. For example, the research found 43% of Canadians are interested in "no checkout" stores such as Amazon Go. And 33% are interested in social payment apps.
Emerging market
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is collaborating with Ant Financial to promote financial inclusion, reports
The partnership brings together two major forces in payments innovation.
New fossil
Fossil has introduced new smartwatches that include NFC, heartbeat tracking, GPS and other wearable technology.
Wear OS by Google and Qualcomm Snapdragon are powering the features, which will enable users to make contactless payments that can be paired with other activities, such as fitness clubs.
From the Web
TechBullion | Wed August 8, 2018 - We all currently enjoy the luxury of paying digitally at every single place we go. Almost all the big merchants accept digital payments such as payment using credit, debit cards, digital wallets, etc.
ABC News | Wed August 8, 2018 - New kinds of installment plans are offering options to shoppers who may remember layaway as something their parents or grandparents used. The payment businesses, many of them startups, are working with companies like Urban Outfitters or Expedia to give shoppers an alternative to traditional credit cards.
The Economic Times | Wed August 8, 2018 - Some of the largest Indian banks already use blockchain and the technology is now finding buyers among all high-street lenders that are seeking to thwart competition from fintech firms. Blockchain is like the “Whatsapp highway for payments,” says Navin Gupta, Managing Director of South Asia and Middle-East and North African regions at Ripple, a global blockchain firm. Just like messages on Whatsapp, transactions on it are encrypted and peer-to-peer.
More from PaymentsSource
Mobile order-ahead payment schemes are set to transform the U.K. retail industry over the next few years with leading payments providers and high street businesses vying to capitalize on this emerging digital trend.
In today’s era of data explosion, it’s more important for organizations to make the most of analyzing their colossal amounts of data in real time for anti-money-laundering efforts.
Visa has become an investor in Behalf, which provides a working capital option for large and small merchants at the point of sale when completing a purchase to obtain goods or services for their businesses.
While a significant amount of press has been made about providing faster access to payments for Uber and Lyft drivers, as well as workers in the gig economy, there is an underserved community of millions of Americans who work in low-wage jobs living paycheck to paycheck.
