Retailers

Walmart customers will soon be able to shop for groceries online using Google hardware, giving the retailer an established market for voice ordering — that is still a distant second to Amazon's Alexa user base.

Serving the small-business market requires more than just rebranding a plastic card. There are certain functions related to expense tracking, for example, that don't come up in a typical consumer relationship.

The FIS-Worldpay and Fiserv-First Data combos do provide notable scale, but the even-larger companies still won't produce the same pace of growth that younger nimble fintechs enjoy, says Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Jumia Technologies AG said Mastercard Inc. has agreed to invest 50 million euros ($56 million) in a private placement ahead of the Africa-focused online retailer’s planned initial public offering in New York.

While banks are oftentimes simply too big to react to this consumer change quickly, more agile fintechs have been much faster to prioritize mobile-first POS financing, argues Nufar Segal, general manager of consumer financing at Jifiti.

In the emerging ecosystem economy, merchants will need to provide a seamless buying journey for customers. That means everything from a dynamic user interface and smart authentication to contactless payment options for faster transaction times, writes Paul Perry, a contributor for the technology company Relay.

Once Apple looked at the state of its existing ecosystem, it identified a space it could uniquely deliver on, and activated the partners needed to make it come to fruition — a perfect example of the concept of ecosystem enablement, argues Frank Kenney, director of market strategy for Cleo.

U.S. lawmakers are not enthusiastic about the cashless trend being driven by the likes of Amazon Go, sweetgreen, and numerous other merchants of all sizes.

The U.K. prepaid gift card market is experiencing strong growth among consumers who buy them as gifts and for self-use, as well as among businesses that purchase them for customer loyalty programs and as employee incentives.

The scope of customer experience spans multiple products and services that comprise the merchant technology and payment service ecosystems, according to Paul Perry, a contributor for the technology company Relay.