June, 2023

• 1 June

  Faster Payments Mean Real Supply Chain Gains

  

  Real-time payments can bring much more flexibility—and potential profit—to businesses of all sizes. Following Covid’s chaos, that’s good news. Supply-chain chaos has forced many companies to adopt new strategies to keep goods moving and meet demands for fast funds. The financial-services industry is no exception to the growing demand for …

March, 2023

• 1 March

  What’s in Your Wallet?

  

  Whatever it is, seven big banks hope consumers will prefer their new app instead—which has no name and about which there are few details. The seven big banks that own Early Warning Services LLC—operator of the Zelle payments network—are hoping they can make inroads with a new digital wallet. It’s …

December, 2022

• 1 December

  Time to Reform the CFPB

  

  The Fifth Circuit’s ruling that the way the agency is funded is unconstitutional opens the door to rewrite its remit and take politics out of its decisions. Paraphrasing Leon Trotsky, payment systems, processors, fintechs, and financial-services firms may not be interested in the CFPB, but the CFPB is interested in …

November, 2022

• 1 November

  Apple Pay Later Reconsidered

  

  Apple’s venture into BNPL may prove more difficult for the computing giant than it thinks. When Apple officially announced its new Apple Pay Later feature this summer, many in the industry weren’t surprised. Yet it ushered in renewed anxiety for existing card-based BNPL market leaders, as it added another layer …

October, 2022

• 1 October

  Travel Now, Pay Later

  

  Vacation and hospitality booking is the next wave in BNPL. Picture this. You’re on the beach. The sun is shining and the luxury resort you’re staying at is the farthest from home you’ve been in nearly two years. But you don’t worry about how much it costs. That’s because you, …

July, 2022

• 1 July

  BNPL’s Bumpy Road

  

  The buy now, pay later trend is one of the hottest in payments. But rising rates, higher inflation, and stiffer rivalry could cool things off. Few trends in payments have been as explosive as instant credit online or at the point of sale, with no interest if the installments are …

May, 2022

• 1 May

  In Transit Payments, Collaboration Is Key

  

  Agencies that work with vendors on innovation and service will get more of both. Word on the street is that some transit agencies are choosing to opt for more modular approaches when it comes to their transit-payment systems, picking and choosing different vendors for different parts of their systems. Agencies …

April, 2022

• 1 April

  Has Real Disruption Finally Arrived?

  

  Creative, norm-breaking advances in payments can happen in the strangest places. Just ask BIM Networks, Discover—and the ACH. Another $13 billion poured into the top 250 fintech startups last year as investors doubled down on the business potential of disrupting staid financial-services providers and the moribund card-payments infrastructure. But where’s …

December, 2021

• 1 December

  The Digital Financial Services Playbook

  

  Advanced technologies and open banking have rewritten the rules for success in payments and other crucial financial services. Here’s how to compete—and win. Yes, the future of financial services is digital. But so is the present. Increasingly, traditional institutions, fintechs, and service providers are coming together like a set of …

July, 2021

• 1 July

  Fintechs Take Aim at B2B Payments

  

  Financial-technology service providers are out to disrupt business-to-business payments. But rather than displacing banks, fintechs are looking to make them their partners. From virtual cards to digital invoices with embedded payment links, financial-services technology providers are aggressively targeting business-to-business payments. Fintechs are pushing into the B2B space—which has long been …