Payments

If the mega payments deals of 2019 left the acquiring landscape somewhat scorched, the COVID-19 pandemic planted new seeds to allow ISOs to grow by quickly converting merchants to electronic payments.

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

Remitly has added 11 new mobile wallets to its network, almost doubling its reach to 300 million consumers, to meet demands for cash alternatives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

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.

Amid the economic and health wreckage the COVID-19 global pandemic has created, payments have stepped to the forefront in a way that has allowed banks, merchants and consumers to not only continue to do business, but also to increase communication.

Brad Windbigler, treasurer at Western Union, talks to us about how the company navigated the challenges of the pandemic — particularly as the global nature of its network meant it had to contend with moving money across parts of the world that recovered at vastly different rates from one another.

The 2020 election has tossed the U.S. Postal Service under extreme scrutiny, pressuring the institution at a time when it has become a potential catalyst for financial inclusion.

The Fed's faster payments platform may well roll out in three or four years, but by then it will already be outdated.