Retailers

Boosted by companies like Klarna, Affirm and Splitit, payment installment plans have become a popular alternative to credit card debt for consumers — and business transactions are the next target.

Ever since Amazon.com Inc. bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion, shoppers and investors alike have wondered how the e-commerce giant would integrate the upscale grocer into its sprawling online operation. Now, after two years of tinkering, Amazon is betting big on quick delivery from Whole Foods.

Revel noticed its point-of-sale customers were similar to most consumers who don't take advantage of the vast capabilities of their computers or smartphones, or don't even realize what tools exist.

The promise of real-time payments and the reality of the market are often at odds. That’s not a bad thing — it’s a sign there are pockets of demand that weren’t originally foreseen.

TouchBistro, an iPad-based restaurant order-and-payment system, has reaped $120 million in a new funding round led by Canadian pension fund Omers, with JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, BMO Capital Partners also participating.

As incumbent merchant acquirers have gotten larger through massive M&A deals, Stripe has been bulking up as well, including a fresh investment to fuel a cross-border merchant technology stack.

Selling to international markets is the name of the game for online merchants, which face a threat to their relevance if they can't match the distinct transaction preferences of individual markets.

Staying on top of new threat sources isn’t easy, but things will keep getting worse if we can’t openly discuss the matter, says Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO of Chargebacks911 and CIO of its parent company Global Risk Technologies.

The launch of the products comes more than a year after Capital One wrested the Walmart partnership from Synchrony Financial.

To eke out growth in the mature payments terminal market, Square is taking its newest NFC-enabled hardware to markets outside the U.S. with heavy contactless card penetration, where some merchants are likely to be behind the technology curve.