Payment processing

Visa is readying its platform for major disruptions by adding artificial intelligence to its neural network so legitimate card transactions will be processed normally in case of a system outage.

Digital remittance provider WorldRemit has agreed to acquire Sendwave, a mobile app-based remittance company focused on servicing the African money transfer corridors.

If suppliers don’t get paid in a way that works well in their processes and systems, it causes many nightmares for their accounts receivable team. Those nightmares can spread throughout the organization, causing stress and frustration, says Nvoicepay's Josh Cyphers.

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The Fed's faster payments platform may well roll out in three or four years, but by then it will already be outdated.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

Wirecard, which is trying to sell pieces of its embattled company while rivals pick up its clients, has struck a deal to sell its U.K. division, Wirecard Card Solutions, to Railsbank, an open banking and payments technology firm.

Unicomer Group, Latin America’s equivalent of Best Buy, has teamed up with YellowPepper to develop a digital credit app that acts as a financial services center for underbanked and unbanked consumers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has teed up a growth opportunity for the buy now, pay later (BNPL) financial industry, as recession worries made people receptive to entering short-term payment plans that can fit in a budget.

Providing core payment capabilities, like debit and credit or P2P, are a business necessity. But you must also have a host of complementary services and capabilities that surround these services, says Fiserv's Himanshu Patel.

Non-card APMs are no longer an option but an absolute necessity. If they are not available, businesses face a “transaction declined” scenario where their customers will simply go elsewhere, says gaming payments expert James Ashton.

As the coronavirus pandemic began, PayActiv waived fees for its earned wage access (EWA) user base. Eventually those fees returned, but they did not deter adoption.

For real-time payments to become a standard in U.S. billing and payment processing, businesses have to want what providers are developing. And that acceptance, or the interest in having an RTP option, is on the rise.