Point-of-sale

Fintechs providing installment loans are attracting significant funding from investors who see opportunities in developed economies for consumer financing products, which are already well established in emerging markets.

AiFi has partnered two global powerhouses in banking and groceries to pilot an Amazon Go-like convenience store in the Netherlands.

Legacy retailers are starting to get serious about checkout-free technology, bringing new insights into the challenges inherent in replacing decades-old traditional checkout layouts at stores.

Issuers like Chase and Citi that added installment features to compete with digital lenders will need to think beyond traditional card options.

Checkout-free technology is very limited in availability and very much a work in progress, but developers and investors are relying on its promise to accelerate payments' broader evolution from streamlining execution to determining intent.

In recent years, the in-aisle payments and checkout-free stores have become increasingly common across the U.K. retail market, especially in the supermarket and grocery sector. Now High Street fashion outlets are coming under pressure to introduce faster and more convenient payment options to keep up with consumer demands.

Issuers like Chase and Citi that added installment features to compete with digital lenders will need to think beyond traditional card options.

Klarna raised another $460 million in fresh equity funding, pushing the Swedish company’s valuation to about $5.5 billion.

Investors are making bets on checkout-free retail, a category that is just as challenging as it is innovative. But it's payment technology's race to the moon, a chance to seize a favorable position in the struggle to save retail.

Bitcoin Hyper is working with a Latin American payment processor to bring acceptance of its high-speed cryptocurrency to multi-channel payment terminals and mobile apps in the U.S. and Latin America.

As checkout-free stores dramatically reduce — or even eliminate — the need for point-of-sale devices, terminal makers are turning their focus to multichannel services that can keep younger, digital-savvy customers coming into stores.

A stronger U.S. economy paved the way for Toast and other companies like it, such as Bolt and Due, to find their own niche against PayPal, Stripe and Square when it came to serving small restaurants or coffee shops with point-of-sale hardware and software.

Giant Eagle’s supermarkets go back a century, literally, making the Pittsburgh chain one of the best tests yet for how the supermarket experience can adapt to mobile technology and the de-emphasizing of traditional checkout.

One year out from hosting the Summer Olympics, Japan’s merchant base has a low ratio of contactless acceptance compared with other major markets.

ZestFinance is bringing its machine learning software ZAML to Brazilian retailer Via Varejo and its digital banking subsidiary Banqi to power the credit underwriting for Varejo’s “carnês” point-of-sale microfinance lending product.

The company, which announced the conclusion of a three-year-old credit card partnership with TD Bank, is shifting to digital financing of individual consumer purchases.

The fintech rush into point of sale financing is partly a play on younger consumers’ migration away from traditional credit cards. This, in turn, has prompted a counterplay from Citizens Bank.

Installment payments are catching on quickly with merchants and their customers, creating a fierce competition among rivals who are building competing technology and business models to approach the new market.

For banks and financial institutions, the wave of the future is using technology to optimize, not eliminate, their cash-handling processes, writes Diebold Nixdorf's Devon Watson.

Abercrombie & Fitch and Klarna are following a successful launch of short-term installment loans on apparel in Germany by adding more markets.