Shake Shack adds mobile delivery; Commonwealth Bank of Australia plans point-of-sale credit

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Shaking it up

Shake Shack is launching an in-app order/pay and delivery service through its partnership with Uber Eats, which builds on the quick service chain's mobile-focused upgrades during the pandemic.

The new feature enables consumers who order and pay via Shake Shack's app to track their order and pay a 99-cent delivery fee, or a free delivery for orders over $35, reports CNBC, adding Shake Shack is testing a 5% upcharge for other third-party deliveries as a way to route consumers to the in-app/Uber Eats system.

Quick serve chains are scrambling to redesign their layout to accommodate a dramatic falloff in traditional point-of-sale ordering and dining. Shake Shack earlier added what it calls Shack Track, which combines mobile order/pay with in-person pickup outside of the store or on in-store shelves.

A basket of Shake Shack pagers
Bloomberg

Store's open

Flywire has launched an e-store aimed at its target client base, which is mostly higher education institutions and their students.

The store is designed to enable purchases of school-related items, event registration and online access to other education-related activities. Flywire's core business is a payment gateway for larger tuition payments, though smaller education transactions often take place in other venues, making Flywire's e-store a chance to own more of the students' and universities' relationship.

Flywire has diversified into health care payments and installment lending, and most recently added more services as a way to weather the pandemic's impact on higher education.

Closing shop

London fintech Revolut is ending its 18-month beta in Canada, a setback for the company's global expansion.

Revolut has not been able to offer a wider enough range of products in Canada, reports BetaKit, which published a tweet from Revolut saying the company hoped to expand to Canada in the future.

Revolut has not yet obtained a banking license in Canada, where a group of five banks control most of the market. The fintech has used licensing as a way to build markets outside of the U.K., as well as a hedge against Brexit.

Price war

Commonwealth Bank of Australia plans to offer a point-of-sale credit product that will not charge merchants fees beyond the normal card interchange.

The move undercuts Buy Now/Pay Later firms such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay (which is based in Australia), reports Finextra. Purchases between A$100 and A$1,000 are eligible to consumers who show evidence of a regular salary that's deposited into a CBA account.

CBA, which plans to launch its BNPL service in the middle of 2021, will retain its partnership with Klarna, according to Finextra, and will market its own BNPL product as an alternative.

From the web

Saleor scores $2.5M seed round for its ‘headless’ e-commerce platform
TECHCRUNCH| Thursday, March 18, 2021
Founded in 2020 but with a history going back to 2013, years before founders Mirek Mencel and Patryk Zawadzki spun out the product separate from their agency, Saleor is described as an “API-first” e-commerce platform that takes a “headless” approach. The idea is that the platform does the back-end heavy lifting so that developers can focus on the front end where most of the value is created for users.

Cash-and-send fintech startup Diem raises $5.5M seed led by Fasanara Capital
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Pakistani province plans to build pilot crypto currency mining farms
REUTERS | Thursday, March 18, 2021
The Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is planning to build two hydroelectric-powered pilot "mining farms" to capitalise on a bullish global cryptocurrency market, a minister overseeing a new government crypto policy told Reuters on Wednesday.

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