POS and Retail

The months-long saga of Bytedance’s forced sale of TikTok in the U.S. is finally close to the finish line, and Walmart stands to gain new social tools and youthful consumers in its battle with Amazon and other brick and mortar chains.

The humble QR code — invented for automobile manufacturing in 1994 — had been on the rise as a payment method for many years, but the pandemic expanded its use in the U.S. in some unforeseen ways.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced retailers and consumers alike to consider the benefits of shopping via a mobile app, providers of shopping and loyalty apps were seeking partnerships with security vendors to deploy fraud prevention technology.

Apple's legal dispute with Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, has exposed a potential nuclear option that the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant can use against any company that sells online.

PayPal released a survey of online small and medium-sized merchants that expressed caution about the upcoming holiday season, as 70% do not plan to hire new or rehire furloughed staff.

When the U.K. went into a coronavirus-induced lockdown on March 23 as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced school, office and retail closures, it caused a ripple effect on the U.K. e-commerce market.

Discover is working to help Black-owned businesses and other merchants maintain foot traffic — safely — through the use of the card network's payments technology and its marketing heft.

Walmart’s membership service undercuts Amazon Prime on price and offers myriad perks, including access to streamlined checkout and deliveries — two areas where Walmart has struggled in the past.

Mastercard is entering the cashierless checkout fray with a spate of pilots it’s launching at convenience stores and drive-through QSRs including Circle K, Dunkin’ and White Castle.

One thing that many parents are finding unusual this year is the amount of money being spent on school supplies during the coronavirus crisis — it’s actually going up.

Checkout-free retail is still not ready to move out of tiny spaces, though Amazon’s trying to accelerate progress through a trio of initiatives that have come to light over the past few weeks.

Advocates of allowing merchants to add a surcharge to defray the cost of credit card interchange have had to overcome network bureaucracy, state laws and even ingrained habits among the merchants themselves.

The “Just walk out” technology Amazon Go stores introduced a few years ago was revolutionary for shopping and payments, but it’s a model most supermarkets can’t easily copy, according to NCR.

Unicomer Group, Latin America’s equivalent of Best Buy, has teamed up with YellowPepper to develop a digital credit app that acts as a financial services center for underbanked and unbanked consumers.

7-Eleven’s not a quick serve restaurant chain or an e-commerce marketplace, but it still found substantial use for its app as a way to quickly address the health worries of its customers.

A rise in chargebacks has renewed a push for an independent standards body by the SPP, formed in 2018 to represent merchant groups .

Square's gross payment volume tumbled by 15% year-over-year due to COVID-19’s impact, but revenue jumped as online selling rose, Cash App doubled in users and Square enabled almost $900 million in PPP loans.

Payment processor Elavon purchased Sage Pay four months ago, completing the acquisition on March 11. Two days later, Elavon's entire workforce was operating remotely as the coronavirus forced it into lockdown.

With its acquisition of Montreal-based Mobeewave, Apple has placed a long-term bet on where it sees the payments industry headed.

Apple Inc. has acquired Mobeewave Inc., a startup with technology that could transform iPhones into mobile payment terminals, according to people familiar with the matter.