Payment processing

Citigroup’s $900 million payment blunder in a normally low-profile part of the financial market dominated by a handful of banks has experts wondering if regulators will uncover a deeper problem.

Afterpay has entered into an agreement with NBQ Corporate SLU to acquire Pagantis SAU and PMT Technology SLU for €50 million (about $59 million) to expand into France, Italy and Spain — a direct challenge to Klarna, one of the dominant European buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers.

Checkout-free retail is still not ready to move out of tiny spaces, though Amazon’s trying to accelerate progress through a trio of initiatives that have come to light over the past few weeks.

The company will offer retail installment loans up to $40,000 through a partnership with Mastercard's Vyze unit.

Advocates of allowing merchants to add a surcharge to defray the cost of credit card interchange have had to overcome network bureaucracy, state laws and even ingrained habits among the merchants themselves.

Extending more digital pay can help integrations with other functions such as enterprise resource planning, says Nvoicepay's Kristin Cardinali.

Brisbane, Australia-based EML has partnered with the New Zealand buy now, pay later fintech Laybuy to leverage digital cards for in-store and online retail purchases.

Part of the coronavirus’s economic story is the sudden boom in installment payment services — a sure sign of consumers and merchants wanting a haven from revolving debt. But the rush to simpler credit is also a reflection of how the crisis has changed the way people are living and managing their lives.

The Fed's faster payments platform may well roll out in three or four years, but by then it will already be outdated.

The “Just walk out” technology Amazon Go stores introduced a few years ago was revolutionary for shopping and payments, but it’s a model most supermarkets can’t easily copy, according to NCR.