Point-of-sale

The global coronavirus outbreak has up-ended daily life for many consumers, including where they shop and how they pay for things. The U.K. is no exception, as issues of health and hygiene have now been introduced as important factors when it comes to both planned and impulse shopping.

Checkout-free stores would seem to be the perfect fit for germaphobic shoppers during the coronavirus pandemic, but until now the model has been mostly experimental.

As consumers dump cash and traditional point of sale hardware for contactless payments, PayPal has added support for QR codes in 28 countries.

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, cybercriminals were shifting their attention away from point-of-sale terminals — but the retail industry still absorbs the most attacks seeking to compromise databases or networks.

Cross-border payment fintech dLocal is partnering with Canadian e-commerce company Shopify to enable small businesses to offer local payment methods in more than 19 currencies in emerging markets.

A mix of consumer debt and economic anxiety is shining a light on firms that offer alternatives to revolving credit. This, in turn, creates a chance to further tie financing directly to checkout.

When the coronavirus pandemic began, Square pushed hard to get a bigger share of merchants' online sales and consumers' stimulus spending — and even received its long-desired bank license — but found that this wasn't enough to offset the effects of the crisis.

Despite PayPal's efforts to get people to receive — and spend — their stimulus checks from PayPal accounts, the coronavirus pandemic caused its revenue for the first quarter to come in below company guidance.

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing far more e-commerce transactions — and thus, more spending on cards instead of cash — loyalty and rewards are vital to creating lasting consumer habits.

Fears of catching coronavirus during the payment process has given a sharp boost in usage and awareness of contactless payments since the pandemic began, according to a new survey from Mastercard.