Technology

As millions of U.S. consumers are beginning to see stimulus checks electronically deposited into their bank accounts as part of the CARES Act, many companies are wondering how Americans will spend these funds.

Wall Street trading arms benefited from first-quarter volatility, but it may not be enough to salvage future earnings; “unprecedented volume” of customers logging into their online bank accounts creates system overload at many banks.

IT projects are under scrutiny due to the coronavirus, not only in terms of budgets but also how fast firms can deploy automation for tasks such as business payments for companies that have turned to remote work.

While the primary focus for most credit card providers in March was on emphasizing fee forgiveness and payment deferral support, moving forward issuers need to focus on a mix of strategies to retain their cardholders' share of spend, says The Futurist Group's Demitry Estrin.

Many credit union employees are currently working from home to slow the spread of COVID-19 but this can invite more attacks from cyber criminals.

As Amazon and e-commerce companies in parallel broadened their adoption rates, they further trained consumers to expect a frictionless and speedy checkout process, says Grubbrr's Bhavin Asher.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, it was becoming clear that the work of the past decade to establish the Single Euro Payment Area was paying off with real-time payments networks and opening possibilities for another European payments scheme.

The SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program is nearly depleted, but there are ways small banks and fintechs, with help from Congress, can remedy the situation.

The benefits of virtual payment cards go beyond replacing physical cards and eliminating social contacts. Payment vendors that manage these virtual cards can also create branded cards and portals for companies, says Berkeley Payments' Jonathan Hamburg.

Though NFC adoption is still somewhat patchwork in the U.S., new data suggests contactless payment transaction volume is rising during the coronavirus outbreak, giving an advantage to banks and merchants that enabled it early.