Payments

With its acquisition of Montreal-based Mobeewave, Apple has placed a long-term bet on where it sees the payments industry headed.

Citigroup plans to let credit card customers finance big purchases on Amazon.com over longer periods of time — a deal that may spur sales at the e-commerce giant while boosting the bank’s interest-bearing balances.

Government stimulus programs are buoying consumers hurt by the coronavirus shutdown; the bank has been forced to sell loans to stay within the Fed-imposed $1.95 trillion asset cap.

Banks are utilizing an array of overlay services to address historical market challenges, such as the continued use of checks among businesses that do not have the information or capabilities to send digital payments.

The major card networks have heavily invested in broader services as transaction processing loses its luster, a strategy that’s provided a ray of hope as retail and travel industries remain sidelined.

Apple Inc. has acquired Mobeewave Inc., a startup with technology that could transform iPhones into mobile payment terminals, according to people familiar with the matter.

The pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the global and US economies, household incomes, and consumer spending. The world's most valuable financial services firm is ready to share insight around the global and US effects of COVID-19.

This personal funding has blurred the line between personal and business finances more than ever.

MoneyGram International's digital transformation came at just the right time, considering walk-in traffic at MoneyGram locations in certain regions of the world was stymied for months by the coronavirus pandemic. But for many people, digital is still no replacement for the human touch.

Cross-border payments do not and should not exist in a vacuum, says Veem's Marwan Forzley.

Cash usage dropped much lower due to the coronavirus pandemic, and it appears that credit cards may be exhibiting some signs of abandonment as well.

If bankers have learned anything from treading a pandemic, it’s that providing personal services at the moment of need has become even more essential than it was before, says Jack Henry's Tede Forman.

Apple Card helped push services-category revenue to new heights for Apple, which reported double-digit growth in its product and services segments for the third quarter of 2020.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks said the agency plans to issue new assessment procedures within weeks as a follow-up to recent Community Reinvestment Act reforms. He also touched on the “true lender” issue and why the agency is considering a narrow-purpose payments charter.

As demand for secure and seamless digital payments increases, financial institutions must prioritize a digital-first payments strategy that incorporates the latest trends, says CSI's Matt Herren.

Mastercard reported a sharp decline in payments in its most recent quarter, but some digital seeds it planted before the coronavirus pandemic are already bearing fruit.

As more payment enterprises embrace the ecosystem model, we will continue to see a shift toward composable and dynamic operations flows supported by an engineering-first approach and a smart digital core, Andres Ricaurte of Mphasis says.

The agency's voice carries even more weight in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which has hastened the transition to digital and remote payments.

The company's results put firm numbers on one of the most discussed business trends of the pandemic economy — the acceleration of digital payments.