It’s May, and that means it’s time for our annual exercise to seek out and describe the nonbank players, apart from the big networks, that are rewriting the rules for the digital exchange of value. Since 2004, Digital Transactions has traced the course of payments innovation through its nimblest practitioners—the …

Transactions on gift cards and cryptocurrency—and even buy now, pay later capability—are coming to commercial washers, dryers, and vending machines with an announcement Monday by PayRange Inc. that it will support the new payment methods. The Portland, Ore.-based company, which says it processes for more than half a million commercial …

Despite rampant inflation and supply-chain shortages that have made certain products hard to come by, gift cards, whether they are physical or digital, remain popular with consumers. Indeed, 58% of consumers plan to purchase more gift cards as an alternative to tangible products due to inventory shortages in 2022, according …

Sales of gift cards in the United States remained steady in 2021, with 73% of consumers purchasing the same number of cards, or more, compared to a year earlier, says a report from Fiserv Inc.  Online merchants were the biggest beneficiaries, with 53% of respondents saying they purchased a gift …

Klarna AB, the Sweden-based buy now, pay later giant with a major stake in the U.S. market, has opened a waiting list for its Klarna Card in the United States. The cobranded Visa card, to be issued by Salt Lake City-based industrial bank WebBank, follows Klarna’s convention of allowing users …

Another sort of unicorn. Here’s why it’s more accurate to speak of super-power apps. Mobile payments in the United States remain a minority, accounting for just under 4% of all payments made in-person. Even worse, 25% of U.S. consumers are still using paper forms of payment, including checks. Fintech-supplied bank accounts …

It’s May, and that means it’s time for our annual exercise to seek out and describe the nonbank players, apart from the big networks, that are rewriting the rules for the digital exchange of value. Since 2004, Digital Transactions has traced the course of payments innovation through its nimblest practitioners—the …

How people purchased goods and services online, at the in-store point of sale (POS), or on mobile devices changed significantly during the pandemic. Whether or not businesses closed their brick-and-mortar storefronts, they experienced a shift to contactless and online channels as a safer way to transact for businesses and consumers.  …

With global economies expected to re-open as more consumers receive Covid-19 vaccinations, in-store retail spending will hit $22.8 trillion worldwide in 2022. That’s after in-store sales fell 7% in 2020 as many consumers shifted purchases online. The projection comes from London-based Kaleido Intelligence Ltd.  While the Covid-19 pandemic impacted in-store …

We are all living digitally infused lives as a result of the pandemic, and as the promise of a vaccine suggests that this may end in the coming year, the question is: will the changes stick? One area of keen interest to retailers and the payments industry is mobile payments, …