Point-of-sale

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.

Installment lending, whether it’s online or at the physical point of sale, is a market sector that has been experiencing a global boom in consumer demand for the last several years. Is this a short-term trend or are there potentially deeper-rooted factors that could make installment lending, especially online, a major source of future loans?

H&M will enable Klarna as a payment option in its 580 U.S. stores beginning this fall, building on a partnership the two Swedish companies established last year.

Visa’s chief economist recently warned that fintechs are disintermediating banks’ credit card businesses with instant access to installment loans. Now Visa is looking to disrupt the fintechs by giving issuers a way to do the same.