Retailers

Standard Cognition raised $40 million in a Series A funding round among five different venture capitalists to expand its cashierless checkout footprint.

Amazon Go’s cashierless checkout model has made its impact felt across the board, motivating large chains like Walmart and Kroger's to respond. But the biggest threat it poses is to convenience and fast-food brands like 7-Eleven.

Given Chinese consumers’ appetite for U.S. and foreign brands, retail companies planning to participate in this year’s holiday sales in China should consider capitalizing on China’s huge holiday sales by adopting mobile pay and influencer marketing and by emphasizing quality and authenticity, according to Franklin Chu, managing director for Azoya USA.

The Madrid-based personal financial management provider Fintonic has partnered with Amazon to offer its Spanish customers a zero percent installment loan for purchases made on Amazon.es.

Amazon’s transit-friendly posture should provide momentum for digital ticketing and other subway improvements in Queens, N.Y., and northern Virginia — and if recent history is any indication, Amazon may take an active role in improving that infrastructure.

Six months ago, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, took effect, threatening companies worldwide with massive fines if they didn’t look after customer data properly. Fresh research suggests it’s making a difference in Europe -- but not so much for U.S. web users.

The Norway company is introducing a service in Finland and Sweden giving consumers an instant-credit option enabling them to opt to pay later for purchases.

Adapting to Chinese consumers’ expectations of mobile pay options can help international retailers remain relevant and competitive by offering an easy, smooth, and interactive customer experience, writes Franklin Chu, managing director for Azoya USA.

U.S. restaurants for years have been experimenting with novel EMV payment approaches ranging from tablets to apps, but two major U.S. restaurant chains are opting for basic hand-held terminals from Ingenico.

Instead of focusing on static rewards, card issuers should focus on more proactive and data-driven “rewarding.” This is a profound shift from a transactional strategy to a relational one, writes Kevin Grieve, North America Payments Lead for Accenture.

Amazon’s dominance is in no danger, but the e-commerce giant is looking over its shoulder as Walmart and other retail powerhouses close in. The fourth quarter could be a tipping point for Amazon, which recently lowered its holiday sales growth forecast.

Square gave an earnings forecast in the current quarter that missed analysts’ estimates, amid increasing spending on new products beyond its central payments processing business. The profit projection outweighed a strong sales outlook, sending shares down in extended trading.

After the retail giant filed an $800 million lawsuit against its former credit card partner, shares in Synchrony plunged. Now analysts fear its relationship with Sam’s Club may be in jeopardy.

Merchants and intermediaries who plan to accept crypto payments should ensure that they have compliance programs and policies in place to ensure that they can appropriately diligence the use of cryptos so that their involvement with these new products does not enhance their liability risks, write Evan Koster and Marc Gottridge, partners at Hogan Lovells.

After advancing into some retail settings in Italy last year, the Jiffy P2P payment service is now an option at the country's Carrefour Italia "super stores," supermarkets and express stores.

A standard for protocol layers and interoperability between protocols are needed to lower the threshold for businesses looking to adopt blockchain technology, writes Byung Ik Ahn, CEO of Fantom Foundation.

After the retail giant filed an $800 million lawsuit against its former credit card partner, shares in Synchrony plunged. Now analysts fear its relationship with Sam’s Club may be in jeopardy.

Payments technology veteran Will Graylin is looking to build support for OV Loop, a universal conversation and commerce app he developed that harnesses any handset’s texting capabilities to support voice, text or video messages with an e-wallet to store tokenized payments.

Ant Financial’s push to expand global acceptance of its Alipay mobile wallet to wherever Chinese tourists go continues in Australia through Tyro, a fintech payments operation that obtained a banking license in 2015.

As mega data collaborations among multinational companies threaten to dominate payment technology, developers are digging even deeper into decentralized models as a workaround to sell both greater data analysis and more security.