Loyalty and rewards

Starbucks is looking to reclaim its role as the global leader in streamlined, intuitive order-and-pay systems through machine learning technology it’s developing in-house and through a deal with restaurant-tech startup Brightloom, its new equity investment partner.

When Amazon was busy driving traffic to its site — and the likes of Walmart and Best Buy were aggressively trying to pull shoppers away — it also invited several issuers to compete to be the top-of-wallet card for Prime Day spending.

Even with an economy that has slowed to a "moderate" pace, American Express says U.S. consumers' spending trends remained solid and, in the case of Amex cardholders, they are willing to pay fees for cards that come with the right features.

The annual summer shopping bonanza will run across two days for the first time, and other retailers are following suit with offers of their own. Here’s how credit unions can capitalize on it.

The Prime Day event is also a chance for Amazon to showcase a new range of devices and payment options — but in 2019, Amazon is making some key changes to how it asks its audience to shop.

Prepaid card and payments technology company InComm has acquired Meridian Loyalty, a full-service incentives business that caters to corporations.

These programs are allowed in a majority of states, but only a small portion of credit unions offer them. That may change as the need for deposits grows and consumer expectations shift.

H&M will enable Klarna as a payment option in its 580 U.S. stores beginning this fall, building on a partnership the two Swedish companies established last year.

As blockchain use cases grow, retailers are seeing more reasons to use the distributed ledger technology for payments.

Citigroup will be the first major issuer to use Mastercard technology to give U.S. credit card holders the ability to instantly redeem points on eligible purchases online and through a mobile app.