Cash

Fresh off the heels of having recently raised capital of more than $12 billion in its latest funding round before a potentially lucrative IPO, Ant Financial Group, the operator of Alipay, is rapidly expanding its acceptance network outside of China.

Cash discounting, or informing customers that items in the store are priced less expensively if purchased with cash, does not have the legal barriers of straight surcharging, which is simply charging more for products to cover card fees.

The debit card option will allow Spotify to reach new users in the country including those who don’t have a credit card or want to keep their information private.

Once these security and convenience issues are addressed in the mind of consumers, we will likely see a faster mainstream adoption of digital payments, according to Matt Tatham, manager of content insights and data analyst at Experian Consumer Services.

Starbucks achieved rapid adoption of its mobile card app by building it on top of the highly successful Starbucks closed-loop gift card. Such a model could also apply to the cannabis market, which is largely shunned by mainstream banks and card networks.

Rural Alaskans, including Native Americans living in the mountains, may not have access to traditional banks. But they aren't exactly living off the grid.

A few early adopters — mostly restaurants — have gone cashless, but many merchants have concluded that cash must remain on their menu of payment options.

The sharing economy, declining cash usage, mobile banking and more will all have a major impact on how credit unions do business less than a decade from now, according to one analyst.

NovoPayment, a payment provider focused on Latin America, is working with Visa to help local banks work with Latin American businesses to migrate from their high levels of cash usage to digital payments.

Paysafe Group has introduced a cash-based online payment mechanism for people who don’t have bank accounts or don’t use cards online due to security concerns. The U.K.-based payments services provider is also expanding its presence in the U.S.

Mobeewave is rolling out its mobile point of sale technology in the United Arab Emirates, a country that still has very high cash usage despite government initiatives to encourage digital payments.

Alt Thirty Six is making its digital payment platform focused on the cannabis industry available to the wholesale network of CannTrade, a partnership the companies say will eliminate the need for using cash.

Merchants are interested in new payments technology, but there's still an understanding gap that keeps cash a viable option.

Mastercard's Cardless ATM service, developed with Diebold Nixdorf, resembles the technology many banks have adopted in the last few years — but Mastercard's offering sheds the limitation of being tied to a specific bank's ATMs.

Innovations such as automated smart safes can make it easier to track the flow of paper money, reducing theft risk, and cut down on the number of armored truck pickups, according to Sam Bosch, president and CEO of Peregrin Financial Technologies.

It's vital to be in touch with consumer shopping and payment tastes for individual retail categories and consumer groups. That may or may not include removing cash and human interaction, according to Andrew Wind, principal product manager at Worldpay.

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are adapting to digital payments technology at slower speeds and for different reasons than larger enterprises. Cash and checks still account for almost half of all SMB payments, and SMBs have lagged behind other merchants in the U.S. shift to EMV technology.

Millennials view the ATM as central to how they manage their money and go about their daily lives, writes Yonas Marcos, president and CEO of Star Financial Services.

Bluestone Lane, an Australian-style café and coffee shop chain in the U.S., has been well-served by its move to cashless payments in October 2016. But even the most well-planned transition can encounter problems if customers aren't expecting it.

As marijuana legalization spreads throughout the U.S. and the world, companies in the cannabis market must navigate a delicate tangle of new and old regulations. And many payment providers are unwilling to risk working with dispensaries, leading to some inventive workarounds.