POS and Retail

Although most consumer-facing financial institutions now offer mobile applications, that doesn’t mean that they are ready for a world where smartphones are the primary point of contact with their customers, writes Rune Sorensen, a product manager at Nets.

Visa is working with handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff to debut a global program to fuel networking among women business owners, while also connecting them to companies in the Visa ecosystem such as Square and Yelp.

Its mobile banking app comes with bank accounts, merchant accounts, and instant credit on invoices. Behind it is a network of community banks that will gather the deposits the app brings in.

Marketing and venture capital veteran Allison Johnson will become PayPal's executive vice president and chief marketing officer — a new role at the payments company as it tries to monetize its Venmo app.

One of the few bright spots in Ingenico’s sagging revenue performance last year was double-digit growth within its global e-commerce unit, where it’s been experimenting with chatbots.

One of the concerns for no-cashier stores, beyond how well they work, is that they must also be placed in the middle of tech-friendly cities, where retail space comes at a high cost.

Square just found a replacement for high-profile CFO Sarah Friar but is facing another big hole in its leadership team as head of payments Mary Kay Bowman leaves for Visa.

Self-checkout was only the beginning. In today's high-tech, mobile-driven world, there's a heightened demand for making purchases quickly and seamlessly. And it's a demand that no human could possibly meet.

U.S. companies have a leg up on international competition. Yet, many retailers are opting to focus on domestic customer bases, claims Steve Villegas, vice president of partner management at PPRO.

TSYS is responding to growing demand for a lighter and more versatile point of sale with a line of payment tools answering many of the newer merchant needs Square, Clover and Poynt typically provide.

Square has rolled out a software development kit for developers to add payments to their mobile apps, creating an end-to-end solution using only Square’s tools.

It may seem shortsighted, but online retailers need to be laser focused exclusively on what has traditionally worked to maximize online sales, writes Devaraj Southworth, co-founder and CEO of Thirstie.

For several years, PayPal, Square, Adyen and Stripe have dominated the lucrative payments market. Now hundreds of upstarts with names like Bolt, Toast and Due are muscling into the market with their own twist on facilitating commerce between merchants and shoppers.

The country’s largest grocery retailer, Kroger, is partnering with Microsoft to pilot two connected experience stores for a proof of concept, featuring new retail technologies that will eventually be deployed across Kroger stores and be sold to the retail industry.

Cashierless tech startup Standard Cognition has acquired the robotic mapping startup, Explorer.ai, to accelerate the rollout of its autonomous checkout solutions to retailers.

Banks, retailers and technology companies have spent years relentlessly working to replace cash with plastic, digital or mobile alternatives. And cash has hit back hard.

Square Inc. named Activision Blizzard Inc. executive Amrita Ahuja as chief financial officer, replacing Sarah Friar, who stepped down from her role as Jack Dorsey’s No. 2 at the digital-payments company last month.

Blockchain technology will allow players to purchase items or games faster, while ensuring their payments are secure, according to Nicolas Gilot, co-CEO of Ultra.

Merchants will need to feel comfortable that enough of their vendors will also accept crypto, writes Jared McClure, co-founder and COO of CrayPay.

Despite years of advancements in mobile and online payments, the physical point of sale remains still ripe for disruption.