Payments

In our first episode of PayDirt: A PaymentsSource Podcast, we talk with Melissa Smith, the CEO of WEX, and her colleague Jay Dearborn about the biggest changes in store for transit, health and corporate payments.

In contrast, grocery stores and pharmacies saw a jump in spending during the coronavrius outbreak, according to credit union member data examined by the CUSO.

Digital payment firms and fintechs are nimble and responsive, but that also creates web supply chain attack risk, says Jscrambler's Rui Ribeiro.

Transit systems are suffering a dramatic loss in ridership, and must find a way to welcome back riders after the coronavirus pandemic ends, since many commuters will have canceled their monthly passes.

When a business accidentally pays an invoice early, due to inaccurate due dates, a change to the delivery date or some other issue, everything changes, says Celonis' Southard Jones.

The reprieve from mortgage data collection was among several changes to the agency’s supervisory and enforcement procedures to help firms responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The standard is playing a foundational role for banks in the transformation of their infrastructures, with the rich messaging format delivering business benefits and enabling enhanced customer propositions, says Icon Solutions' Lauren Jones.

Canada’s small businesses have lagged behind the U.S. in adopting digital commerce for a variety of reasons, but coronavirus might send things in a new direction.

Mastercard is part of an expanding trend toward easing restrictions to entice consumers to choose contactless payments over cash and plastic during the coronavirus.

Alliance Data Systems, which has substantial exposure to the mall-based retail sector, sought Tuesday to assuage investors' fears about the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Former Walmart payments executive Reed Luhtanen has been named the new executive director of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an organization created a year ago to guide American faster payments initiatives.

Former NetSpend CEO Dan Henry has been named as the CEO of Green Dot, the Pasadena, Calif.-based prepaid card issuer and banking company.

For a growing number of people, the coronavirus has disrupted their daily lives in how they work, where they eat and how they spend their money. This drastic change has caused a boom in some sectors of the economy and a bust in other areas.

By embracing technology such as magnetic stripe when it seemed modern, the U.S. has been slower to catch up with much newer digital innovation, argues MSTS' Brandon Spear.

It's still unclear how the coronavirus pandemic will alter payment habits over time — will consumers avoid cash out of fear of germs, or will they favor it as the one payment option that nearly all merchants accept? An impending change in interchange rates may tip the scales in cash's favor.

Targeted marketing efforts must go beyond explaining the functionality and instead educate consumers about all benefits that contactless can offer. Responsible communication should prioritize those who are at the highest risk for infection, says The Futurist Group's Demitry Estrin.

Citi is beefing up leadership in its consumer card lending operations by recruiting Chase exec Pam Habner — credited with engineering the success of Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card — and former Citi exec Chris Fred, who will return after several months of working at Goldman Sachs on Apple Card products.

The coronavirus stimulus package has resurrected calls for the U.S. government to offer a central bank digital currency, public mobile wallets and postal banking—controversial ideas that are hard to pull off, but exist outside the U.S. and could dent interchange fees and private stablecoin projects like Facebook’s Libra.

The legislation sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, would require banks to offer the accounts so that consumers could easily access cornonavirus relief funds without turning to high-cost check cashers.

While financial institutions are encouraging customers to use their digital banking services rather than the branch or ATMs during the outbreak, attackers will also be looking to exploit this potential increased adoption of mobile banking and mobile payment apps, says OneSpan's Sam Bakken.