Retailers

There are subtle differences in Walmart's virtual currency project compared to Facebook's Libra, but these may be enough to avoid the regulatory firing squad that Facebook has endured.

Square has launched Square Terminal in Canada in an effort to lure merchants that use myriad iPads, tablets and smartphones to receive payments in stores and remotely.

Marqeta was in on the API digital payments game early, but rivals from Stripe to Wirecard are aggressively expanding digital payment solutions for diverse consumer and B2B use cases.

The maturation of e-commerce has ushered in an era of personalization at scale and growing customer demand for convenient, flexible shopping experiences, writes Will Walker, enterprise manager at Roadie.

There are subtle differences in Walmart's virtual currency project compared to Facebook's Libra, but these may be enough to avoid the regulatory firing squad that Facebook has endured.

Despite being compliant, market-specific deployments leave retailers facing a new set of compliance challenges when moving into new geographies, argues Arnaud Crouzet, VP of security and consulting at FIME.

Mall landlords accustomed to offering rent reductions to ailing retailers are mulling a new strategy to forestall the industry's collapse: positioning themselves as lenders to tenants struggling to stay afloat.

As technology advances, new terms are existing with older vocabulary, causing potential confusion that challenges user experience, says NvoicePay's Alyssa Callahan.

Managing compliance and breach risk make it harder to offer a good customer experience, but the cost of friction may be even higher, argues Bob Janacek, CEO of DataMotion.

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.

Walmart has filed a patent application for a digital currency that, like Facebook's Libra, would be a stablecoin backed by traditional currencies. And it envisions a very specific use case where its coin could stand in for cash — or even for a bank account.

Younger consumers still like to go to the mall. Keeping them there requires a mix of easy payments, financing and shopping in multiple channels, says Nufar Segal, general manager of consumer financing for at Jifiti.

Most cloud storage systems have gaps that open the door to account takeover, API attacks and other threats, argues Pravin Kothari, founder and CEO of CipherCloud.

Standardizing charge backs would make management easier, and merchants would only have to understand one set of protocols, which could also standardize responses, says Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO of Chargebacks 911 and CIO of its parent company Global Risk Technologies.

Amex's multi-merchant rewards coalition, Plenti, may have failed, but ExxonMobil never gave up on the program's potential.

The Fed's involvement will inject competition into the market and offer merchants choice as they weigh their payments acceptance options, argues John Drechny, CEO of the Merchant Advisory Group.

Long overshadowed by food delivery startups such as Uber Eats and on-demand delivery service players such as Postmates, delivering fuel to a consumer’s vehicle is a convenience service that is growing in the U.S. and other markets.

While traditional payment processors conquered bitcoin in the first battle, the disruptive potential of blockchain technology remains a potent threat and incumbent payment processors should prepare for a healthy new challenge.

The time is ripe to move decision-making up the ladder and for organizations to bite the bullet by creating a more inclusive comprehensive strategy for the overall business that considers all the disparate security needs, writes Madeline Aufseeser, an analyst and fintech executive.

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.