With less than a year to go before gas stations are scheduled to become EMV-compliant at the pump, readiness among fuel merchants remains uneven. A recent study by Naples, Fla.-based ACI Worldwide reveals 47% of major petroleum merchants remain unprepared to meet the deadline and 20% are still in the …

The hits merchants are taking from the Covid-19 pandemic were apparent in the second-quarter financial results the big retail and cobranded card issuer Synchrony Financial reported Tuesday, results which include a 19% year-over-year drop in purchase volume. Stamford, Conn.-based Synchrony posted purchase volume of $31.2 billion versus $38.3 billion in …

All card schemes are now on board with the new deadline for the U.S. EMV liability shift in April 2021. So, the time to upgrade—if you haven’t—is now.  Adding EMV chip readers both inside a store and at automated fuel dispensers (AFDs) isn’t intended to be a hardship for gas …

Total U.S. retail sales, including auto and fuel, will drop 10.5%, to $4.894 trillion in 2020, a total not seen since 2016, forecasts eMarketer Inc. That’s sharper than the 8.2% slump in 2009, in the midst of that recession more than 10 years ago. E-commerce, however, is the bright spot. …

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau issued advance estimates for April’s seasonally adjusted retail and food-services sales totaling $403.9 billion, down 16.4% from March and off 21.6% from April 2019.In one indication of the toll the slumping economy is taking on consumers, store card issuer and processor Alliance Data said its overall delinquency rate …

The general-retail sector of e-commerce saw a 209% increase in sales volume in April, topping all other retail sectors, according to numbers from ACI Worldwide Inc. Not surprisingly, ticketing (down 99%) and travel (negative 91%) topped the list of online sectors with declines.Cardlytics Inc., which plans marketing programs based on intelligence gathered …