Payment processing

Longtime Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was so invested in the company's mobile payments strategy that he once stepped down from his day-to-day duties to focus his full attention on the tech initiative. Without his involvement, will Starbucks lose its edge in fintech?

As the gig economy balloons, a private network is adding partners and geographies to separate itself in a fintech-dominated market.

A fintech that has grabbed a sizable chunk of the Australian digital payments market has made some quick merchant scores for its American launch.

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.

The simplified pricing of fintechs like Square and Stripe has finally caught up with banks' more complex fees, prompting Wells Fargo to restructure its billing for small businesses. Other banks will also face consequences—particularly community banks that depend on local merchants.

Above all, open banking helps financial institutions improve the user experience, increasing customer satisfaction and addressing consumer needs, writes Aurimas Adomavicius, president and co-founder of Devbridge Group.

Protecting customer data should have always been a priority for companies. With GDPR, they now have a framework for teams across the organization to adopt and protect their customer data, writes Shanthala Balagopal, a product marketing executive at Helpshift.

Merchants that want to use technology to boost sales can establish in-house systems labs to test new payment technology and apps, or find an external lab to do so.

Beem It, a startup owned by three of Australia’s largest banks, has launched a free real-time social payments app designed to run on older debit networks instead of the country's new faster payments platform.

With increasing numbers of alternative providers gaining licenses to provide payment services aimed specifically at businesses, Beck predicts the pressure on the banks to offer faster and cheaper services is going to substantially increase.