Payments

The retail chain is uniquely positioned to tie its growing slate of financial products to its customers' shopping needs, both in stores and digitally, said Julia Unger, Walmart's vice president of financial services, at American Banker's Payments Forum.

Strong spending trends, combined with a reduction in card repayment rates, contributed to 17% loan growth last month. The data suggests that rising fears of a recession aren’t yet changing consumers’ behavior.

A more active Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, competition from Big Tech and sanctions on Russia are combining to make compliance a much larger concern than in the past, according to legal experts who spoke at American Banker's Payments Forum.

In international news this week, BNP Paribas extends a credit line with green incentives to Ant Group; four NatWest bank units were penalized for overcharges on interchange fees; Experian agreed to buy a stake in a Brazilian fintech; and more.

Segpay's employees returned to their Florida desks nearly two years ago. Oregon-based Umpqua Bank has permanently adopted a hybrid approach. Both strategies are succeeding, executives at the companies say.

Mastercard has begun to trial a biometric payment system for brick-and-mortar stores, using facial recognition rather than contactless cards, smartphones or memorable PINs.

Consumers are still the driving force of payments innovation — even in business use cases, according to honorees from this year’s Most Influential Women in Payments who spoke at American Banker’s Payments Forum.

The point-of-sale lender is teaming up with Fiserv to streamline its onboarding process for merchants. It's part of Affirm's effort to differentiate itself as more banks and fintechs enter the highly competitive buy now/pay later market.

The BNPL fintech's new Debit+ card, which allows consumers to split purchases within 24 hours, is popular for buying food. Experts worry that this use case may prove more rotten than fruitful for lenders.

Paul Stoddart joins the U.K. company at a crucial time. A specialist in account-to-account transfers, GoCardless sees an opportunity to capitalize on friction over interchange rates.