Payment processing

PayPal is temporarily waiving fees for consumers using its app to accept government and payroll checks during the coronavirus pandemic.

Today, in the era of choice, the U.S. remains unprepared for fast, digital, infrequent or one-time payments from one to many.

The payments landscape for U.K. farmers has long been fraught with inefficiencies at the best of times, particularly when it comes to the government’s processing of financial support payments. Now, with coronavirus wreaking havoc with administrative departments, farmers across the land are bearing the brunt of the crisis.

By embracing this new payment market and its associated technologies now, convenience stores will attract more customers, improving their bottom line while also preparing for the future, writes DigitalMint's Marc Grens.

While an EMV transit system is a form of account-based ticketing (ABT), this assimilation is problematic, says OSPT's Jean-Philippe Wolyniec.

Merchant acquiring is a very face-to-face, sales-oriented business. And that culture has to change before any acquirers can convince their clients that they know how to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.

For the payments companies that have and will continue to support businesses during our current phase of survival and necessity, these partnerships forged in the fires of adversity will lead to strengthened relationships and long-term loyalty during the growth phase that is yet to come, writes Wirecard's Kevin Brown.

Businesses have turned to workarounds to accommodate the coronavirus’ impact on brick-and-mortar stores, emergency measures that will likely become permanent in order for these businesses to survive into the future.

The advent of open banking gives EMIs a once-in-a-generation opportunity to carry on doing what they do best, but doing it faster, cheaper, and with broader horizons, says Token.io's Stefano Paoletti.

Telecommunications company Tigo Tanzania has expanded digital money transfers, allowing customers to send and receive money from their mobile wallets with other providers in the East African region.

With more people sheltering at home and grocery stores limiting access, Domino's is seeing a surge in demand for its pizza — and a need to pay delivery drivers their tips and wages after each shift at a time when the credit card orders outpace the cash on hand at each store.

When we go back to normal, it's our opportunity to start making long-overdue infrastructure upgrades, says Nvoicepay's Derek Halpern.

As the market deals with the short-term challenge of getting stimulus payments into the hands of citizens, the country has a unique opportunity to put the unbanked and underbanked on a long-term path to electronic payment methods, Jim Johnson of FIS says.

Partisan differences get in the way of new aid program for small businesses as SBA program runs out of money; loan servicers want a bailout as defaults are expected.

Payments unicorn Stripe contends it has the financial power to apply its technology to coronavirus medical care, remote telework, business funding, and easier onboarding for companies that have been suddenly thrust into an internet existence.

Wall Street trading arms benefited from first-quarter volatility, but it may not be enough to salvage future earnings; “unprecedented volume” of customers logging into their online bank accounts creates system overload at many banks.

While the primary focus for most credit card providers in March was on emphasizing fee forgiveness and payment deferral support, moving forward issuers need to focus on a mix of strategies to retain their cardholders' share of spend, says The Futurist Group's Demitry Estrin.

As Amazon and e-commerce companies in parallel broadened their adoption rates, they further trained consumers to expect a frictionless and speedy checkout process, says Grubbrr's Bhavin Asher.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, it was becoming clear that the work of the past decade to establish the Single Euro Payment Area was paying off with real-time payments networks and opening possibilities for another European payments scheme.

With the increase in online activity because of COVID-19, tracking down and investigating red flags might be more difficult given the volume of transactions on existing accounts, unless strict authentication measures are applied, says Giact's David Barnhardt.