Insights
ACH Experiences Significant Growth in the Second Quarter of 2021
With Same Day ACH about to mark its fifth anniversary, new figures from Nacha show astounding growth for this faster payment method. In the second quarter of 2021, Same Day ACH payment volume was 148.7 million, an increase of 82% over the same time in 2020. Those...
eCommerce Growth Predictions
What a difference a year makes. Growth predictions between 2021 and 2022 grew significantly. Very few people think eCommerce sales as a percentage of retail will be less than 20% by 2022. Compare those predictions with last year's results for 2021...
COVID-19 Triggers Changes in Payments Habits Amongst over Eight in Ten Consumers
May 5th, 2021. Houston, Texas – More than eight in ten (86%) of U.S., Canadian and European consumers say that their payments habits have changed since the start of the pandemic, with 59% trying a new payment method for the first time, rising to 77% in the 18- to...
What Are Authorization Rates and Why Are They Important to Merchants?
Every time a customer swipes, inserts, or taps their debit or credit card, it requires authorization. A successful authorization implies that a bank account or line of credit has sufficient attainable value that can be set aside for purchase until it is fully...
A Fed Report on Debit Costs Could Fuel a Movement to Reduce a Decade-Old Fee Cap
The Fed set the debit cap at 21 cents, with an additional penny allowed for fraud-prevention costs and 0.05% for recovery of fraud losses. The ceiling, which applies to financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets—the so-called “covered” issuers—came in...
Why Do Bitcoins Have Value?
Currency is usable if it is a store of value, or, put differently, if it can reliably be counted on to maintain its relative value over time and without depreciating. In many societies throughout history, commodities or precious metals were used as methods of payment...
ETA: Celebrating Women’s History in Payments
Women’s History Month celebrates the contributions of women to our culture, history, workplace, and society. This month, we at ETA and in the ETA Network have been reflecting on the increasingly pivotal role women play in supporting the payments ecosystem at all...
ACH Network Sees Record Growth in 2020 to 26.8 Billion Payments
The 26.8 billion payments made on the ACH Network in 2020 is an increase of 8.2% over 2019, while the value of those payments, $61.9 trillion, is up 10.8%. A record of more than 2 billion new payments were added in 2020, and the growth rate is the highest since...
A Guide To Contactless Payments
Contactless payments offer consumers a way to “tap” to pay for their goods at the point-of-sale, allowing them to potentially avoid contact with surfaces that could be contaminated with COVID-19. The payments industry has been powering secure contactless payments in...
Contactless Payments Are To Replace Metrocard by 2023
The use of contactless cards and mobile wallets for payments has experienced expedited growth during the pandemic thanks to consumers’ wish to avoid grimy POS terminals. Mercator Advisory Group data finds that consumers have been switching to...
What Is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that you can buy, sell and exchange directly, without an intermediary like a bank. Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, originally described the need for “an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of...
How Small Business Can Recover In 2021
If the pandemic was hard on major retailers who have doors and customers nationwide along with a strong internet presence, small businesses weren’t about to get a pass. And like the big box stores, the independent stores, and micro chains had to learn to...
Pandemic fueled 32.4% e-commerce surge in 2020
Consumers have been getting comfortable with online shopping and companies have been improving the transaction experience, Digital360 analysts said, but the pandemic “magnified trend lines in a big way.” The biggest jump in online sales occurred shortly after states...
How To Scale Up As Your Customers Grow
As entrepreneurs, we focus on building and growing a business and often get excited at the possibilities that lie ahead. Many of us have big dreams about where our company will go and how we’ll get there, but it can also feel like using a map with no starting point....
Creating a Post-Covid Business Plan
Right now, every company in the world is facing the same question: What’s going to happen when the pandemic is over? Grocery stores and consumer packaged goods manufacturers have experienced an unexpected boost in sales: Will that growth sustain? Hotels and airlines...
Card networks have stepped up their contactless distribution
Several years in the making, contactless payment cards are finally arriving in large numbers at mailboxes throughout the U.S., as domestic cardholders catch up with the rest of the world. But contactless goes beyond plastic cards, with mobile apps providing another...
Retail in 2021: What will endure and what’s going to change?
The United States will have a new president in the White House. “The Matrix 4” will hit the big screen, Tokyo hopes to host the Olympic Games and sales of CBD products will continue to climb. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley are feeling...
How COVID-19 is accelerating the shift to a cashless society
PHILADELPHIA — Tom Ivory, the founder of the Baker Street Bread Co. in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill section, fought a valiant effort for years to rein in bank fees by imposing a minimum credit card purchase of $10. But more customers wanted to go cashless, and Mr....
Why small business payments have big potential
Picture a black-and-white television showing The Andy Griffith Show. Opie Taylor walks down Mayberry’s Main Street to visit Walker’s Drugstore, a small brick building on the corner that represents the quintessential mom-and-pop business of the era. Today’s small...
Contactless Payment Solutions: Why And How To Adopt Them In A Post-Covid-19 Economy
In the early 2010s, economists and retailers were ready to declare the brick-and-mortar (B&M) economy dead. However, despite the continued growth of e-commerce and online shopping, retail stores continued to survive and even thrive, with B&M stores raking in...
What The Future Of Black Friday Looks Like
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is renowned for shopping deals and crowds in stores, but in our Covid-riven world, crowds are the thing to avoid. A study from Visa says that only 20% of U.S. consumers plan to do their shopping exclusively in-store, while...
Payment Gateway vs. Payment Processor
What's the difference between a payment gateway and a payment processor? If you're in the market for credit card processing solutions, you might have come across the terms "payment gateway" and "payment processor." While these are two key, related elements of credit...
A Major Tesla Investor Has Predicted Bitcoin Will Be Worth More Than $1 Trillion In Under 10 Years
Bitcoin has had a strong start to the decade, adding over 40% to its price so far this year—and taking its market capitalization to around $200 billion. The bitcoin price, which began the year at around $7,000 per bitcoin token, has been on a roller coaster through...
Consumers Prioritize Spending on Family, Friends Ahead of Holiday Season
WASHINGTON – Purchasing gifts for friends and loved ones is a way for consumers to shift focus from the uncertainty and stress of the pandemic to celebrating the holidays and the promise of our return to a better tomorrow. In total consumers plan to spend $997.79 on...
Valentine’s Day: How Much Did People Spend?
How much money does Valentine's Day cost? Total spending for the holiday is expected to top $18.2 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. That's an average of $136.57 per person. As you head out to buy candy, cards or flowers today, here's a closer look...
Holiday Consumer Trends 2017
The 2017 Holiday Planning Playbook is retail’s guide for understanding the key lessons from the 2016 season and how the consumer’s ever-evolving path to purchase will impact the upcoming holiday season. To help retailers prepare for the 2017 holidays, NRF surveyed...
Mobile Tipping App
Maria Luna and Hector Rodriguez invented a payment and tipping app called Bravo and pitched it on the televised entrepreneurship competition, which is judged by a team of successful businesspeople. “Bravo is a seamless payment solution that allows you to find and pay...
Checks won’t cut it in the ‘instant pay’ age
Consumer dissatisfaction with paper checks is at an all-time high, expectations for instant money is becoming the default, and the capability for real-time push payments has arrived. A number of recent studies have documented the disfavor of paper checks. Consumers...
Equifax Says Cyberattack May Have Hit 143 Million Customers
Equifax Cyberattack Equifax said its systems were struck by a cyberattack that may have affected about 143 million U.S. customers of the credit reporting agency, shedding light on one of the largest and most intrusive breaches in history. Intruders accessed names,...
What are Integrated Payment Solutions and Why Should You Care?
Integrated payment solutions are tools that your business can use to integrate accounting, customer relationship management (CRM) and other business applications with payments processing. By integrating payments processing with business applications, you can save time...
What Millenials Want
Millenials seem to be voting with their wallets for the convenience provided by these subscription services. Not having to worry if you have milk in the fridge, or enough toilet paper is well the extra few dollars that it might cost. The other factor that vendors...
Holiday Spending May Feature More Debit And Cash. Mobile Payments? Not So Much
The annual holiday-spending frenzy is about to kick off, and if a consumer survey released on Monday is any indication, it will feature a lot more debit card and cash usage and a lot less mobile payment than you might have expected. Some 39% of consumers intend to...
Square IPO Spotlights Changing Payment Processing Landscape
Overview Square Inc., a payments processing company led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, went public yesterday. Despite the company’s weak financials dominating headline coverage over the past few days, technology-focused firms such as Square continue to grow in market...
E-Commerce Spending for November Up 11% Over 2013, comScore Reports
Electronic-commerce spending from work and home desktop computers from Nov 1-23 hit $17.5 billion, up 11% from $15.8 billion in the same period a year earlier, Internet metrics firm comScore Inc. reported Tuesday. Most e-commerce spending is charged to credit and...
Three Years After Durbin, Debit Pricing Flaw Still Drives up Cost for Small-Ticket Sellers
Three years after the Durbin Amendment took effect, the law’s painful impact on the cost of selling soda, candy, newspapers, and other small-ticket items remains an issue. And things may stay that way unless the newly elected Congress acts after taking office at the...
Pulse Sues ‘Long-Time Monopolist’ Visa Over Post-Durbin Debit Actions, Seeks Rival’s ‘Restructuring’
Over the past several years, during his conference calls with analysts to review Discover Financial Services’ quarterly earnings, chief executive David W. Nelms occasionally took swipes at Visa Inc.’s efforts to maintain its dominant debit card market share in the...
Merchants Notch Win in Feud Over Debit Card Fees
Federal Judge Richard Leon's decision to overturn a U.S. Federal Reserve rule on debit card interchange fees charged by banks represents a victory for retailers, and will likely force the Fed to reduce such fees. Leon ruled that the Fed did not do an adequate job of...
Court Overturns the Federal Reserve’s Debit Transaction Cap
Yesterday, The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision striking down the Federal Reserve’s price caps on debit interchange fees. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that the Federal Reserve did not appropriately fulfill Congress's intent...
Merchants Allowed to Surcharge
Beginning January 27, 2013, merchants in the United States and U.S. Territories will be permitted to impose a surcharge on consumers when they use a credit card. Historically Visa has not permitted retailer surcharging, but allowing surcharging was a key provision...
Americans See Smartphones Replacing Cash and Cards
About 60 percent of U.S. adults believe that smartphone payments will eventually replace payment cards and cash transactions for most purchases, according to a new Harris poll. Moreover, 27 percent of Americans, and 44 percent of smartphone users, say they want to use...
Visa Rules on Surcharging for Merchants
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has preliminarily approved a proposed settlement agreement in antitrust litigation regarding interchange fees and merchant discounts. As part of the settlement, Visa will be implementing certain Visa...
The Interchange Fee Cap One Year Later
David Lott, retail payments risk expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, examines the lead up to, reaction against, and eventual fallout of the cap on debit card interchange fees imposed by the Durbin Amendment. Lott notes the Durbin Amendment was in some ways...
Retailers File for Preliminary Approval of Interchange Settlement
On Friday, attorneys for retailers in a long-running antitrust suit challenging the card networks over how interchange rates are set officially filed a motion in federal court seeking preliminary approval of the settlement agreement struck this summer. The $7.25...
Restaurants Oppose $7.2 Billion Credit Card Fee Settlement
The National Restaurant Association is joining opponents of a proposed $7.2 billion antitrust settlement between some merchants and Visa and MasterCard over credit card transaction fees. NRA's main worry is that the settlement would bar all Visa- and...
Visa CEO Sees Immense Potential in Mobile Payments
Visa CEO Joseph Saunders says the payment card processing firm sees immense potential in the mobile payments sector driven by an increasingly tech-savvy younger generation "weaned on electronics." However, to take advantage of this trend, Saunders says the payment...
48 Percent of Americans Ready to Use a Mobile Wallet
Nearly half of U.S. consumers are interested in having a mobile wallet, according to a survey by Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group, which labeled those consumers as either Techno Shoppers or Payment Optimizers. Techno Shoppers are consumers who are attracted...
Credit Cards Being Used More for Basic Needs
Credit cards are still being used to pay for basic needs by many U.S. households, according to a new Demos survey. Forty percent of households that have had credit card debt for at least three months have used their cards to pay for rent or mortgages, insurance...
Mobile Devices Increase Sales At Nordstrom
Nordstrom, the Seattle-based fashion and beauty retailer offering apparel, shoes, makeup and other beauty products, is rolling out mobile point-of-sale (POS) devices throughout their full-line stores, as well as in some of their Nordstrom Rack stores. These mobile POS...
Internet Payments via ACH Grow 9.5% in 2011
Direct ACH debit payments made when authorization is given via the Internet or a mobile device grew 9.5 percent in 2011, accounting for nearly 17 percent of total ACH network payments, according to NACHA, the organization that manages the ACH payment network. NACHA...
Visa and MasterCard Report Rising Payment Volumes
Visa and MasterCard both experienced increases in their payments volumes last month. Visa's total U.S. payments volume increased by 10 percent in February compared with February 2011, while the gross dollar volume of U.S. transactions that were processed by MasterCard...
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