Payments

Mobile order, delivery and payment apps are proliferating at restaurants, but they're also becoming less distinguishable, posing an entirely new challenge as deep discounts become the weapon of choice.

Mastercard and blockchain software provider R3 plan to test a new blockchain-enabled cross-border payments service to connect global faster payments rails supported by a Mastercard-operated clearing and settlement network.

Brazilian payments provider Ebanx is working with Alibaba Group to test a retail store that combines physical and virtual showcases to allow consumers to obtain Chinese technology products.

Researching how pain points make consumers work harder can fix payment execution, says UJET's Anand Janefalkar.

SumUp, a U.K.-based mobile point of sale company, needed a way to differentiate itself from larger rivals such as PayPal, Square and iZettle. Its solution is to offer faster settlement, in partnership with Starling Bank.

Collections professionals are often overlooked because they are forced into a reactive and uncomfortable role. In reality, collections teams are very similar to the much more lauded sales team, says Billtrust's Derek Bluestone.

Starbucks’ latest innovation doesn’t include camera-driven invisible checkout and doesn’t even come from Seattle. But for rank and file retailers, it may prove even more informative than watching the progress of Amazon Go.

FIS has partnered with ControlScan to give its growing number of payment facilitators’ “sub-merchants” a streamlined path to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

Stripe and JPMorgan Chase are firing rapid shots in their battle to win businesses, with faster payments as the centerpiece of their offerings.

High-tech heavyweights like Google, Amazon and Apple have tied payments to broader financial services, added to the view that banks are less relevant, writes Polyient Labs' Brad Robertson.

The world’s biggest restaurant company is buying startup Apprente Inc., a developer of voice-recognition technology for use in the restaurant industry, to help speed up lines. The idea is to eventually have a machine, instead of a person, on the other side of the intercom to relay orders to kitchen staff.

When the former vice president and Massachusetts senator appear together in Houston, they could present two contrasting visions of financial policy within the presidential field.

The large payment processor mergers were meant to give bigger companies a better way to compete against the nimble startups that were luring their customers away for digital services such as mobile point of sale. And post-merger, Fiserv and First Data have fired their first salvo.

MoneyGram has partnered with Visa to leverage debit push payments for P2P transfers in the U.S., with plans to eventually expand the service internationally.

Brexit, the U.S.-China trade war, and warning signs of a recession are pressuring cross-border supply chains, accelerating the impetus to streamline payment processing for transactions that are still relatively large, recurring and paper-based.

The six biggest banks are expected to issue disappointing forecasts as rates continue to decline; technology stock mutual funds scored with payment plays.

Enterprise payments remain a complex litany of disparate processes burdened by fraud, labor and errors, says Troovo's Kurt Knackstedt.

While Gen Z is just beginning to transition into adulthood there are some healthy indicators of how it is approaching credit as well as how it manages debt.

Mobile payments speed and convenience is more than an abstraction, and needs to be quantified, says UJET's Anand Janefalkar.

There's been a significant lag in how financial institutions serve commercial clients with mobile technology, and that creates an opportunity for credit unions.