Visa has taken several recent steps to expand its digital payment capabilities, adding Walmart and other merchants to its Visa Checkout network and upgrading its technology to support payments via connected devices.
It's now reportedly taking a much more direct route by incenting restaurants to use digital payments exclusively. The Wall Street Journal reports Visa will shortly announce a plan to pay small merchants to upgrade their payment technology to support digital payments.
Visa Inc. credit and debit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014. Visa Inc. is expected to release earnings data on Jan. 30. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
But in return, the businesses, which the newspaper reports will be smaller merchants, must stop taking cash.
It's a dramatic step, but a carrot and stick approach to ditching paper money is gaining steam.
Several cities in China have gone cashless, or at least have issued strong incentives to use digital payments over paper money. And most famously, the Indian government last year pulled about 85% of the country's paper money out of circulation to push the country into digital payments, citing security.
The Ohio-based bank reports a 10% expense reduction within a year of moving its contact center technology to Google Cloud through a partnership with UJET.
Medallion Financial CEO Andrew Murstein sees more growth on the horizon for the New York lender's fintech banking operation, which saw activity spike in the first half of the year.
Truist Foundation will fund a multiyear economic development initiative to revitalize business corridors in five Southeastern cities; First Horizon has hired Wells Fargo's Shaun McDougall to head consumer banking; Ally Financial commits over $150 million to support workforce development; and more in this week's banking news roundup.