PaymentsJournal

In traditional government disbursements and emergency payments, prepaid cards played a significant role in accelerating federal economic impact payments (EIP). This was particularly seen during the COVID-19 relief aid. Prepaid cards are faster, more secure, and more cost-effective than paper checks. And they offer benefits to the recipient as well as the agency. They’re also especially useful for...

Fintech applications are taking the lead in digitization of the bill pay space. They now offer improvements in digital bill viewing and bill payment over what banks have traditionally offered. For these reasons, many customers are paying billers directly through fintech applications. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Marcell King , Chief Innovation Officer at Paymentus, and  Brian Riley ,...

For the fifth year in a row, PSCU sought to better understand payment method preferences among consumers, and what factors — whether it’s different life stages or economic events — are driving adoption. For its 2022 Eye on Payments study, PSCU surveyed 1,750 credit union members and nonmembers within the U.S. and found that choice and variety are driving consumer payment preferences. Additionally,...

Fintech companies are seeing the value in payments collaboration, making payment capabilities more accessible through the latest technological innovations. This type of collaboration has worked well for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Plaid. In a recent conversation, Mark Smith , Head of Payments Business and Market Development at AWS, John Anderson , Head of Payments at Plaid, and Tim Sloane , Vice...

Instantaneous movement is technically impossible, but real-time payments get pretty close. Real-time payments (RTP) are financial transactions that are settled almost instantaneously. They use separate digital network “rails” to process payments 24/7 every day of the year. Real-time payments are fast, which is helpful to companies and individuals that either want to pay or receive funds on a momen...

This article is part 2 on the topic of Holiday Spending Insights 2022. Click HERE for part 1. The holiday shopping season is already upon us, and it is poised to be the biggest one yet. Consumers are planning to spend 8% more this year on holiday gifts than last year. This is despite factors such as rising inflation and a potential looming recession. Holiday Trends to Watch Consumers are also shif...

The world continues to move further away from COVID-19 pandemic-induced restrictions. It is moving back into a state of somewhat normalcy. The 2022 holiday season will take on interesting new trends in gifting and how those holiday gifts are paid for. In fact, 58% of consumers are planning to change their shopping behavior. They are seeking to use more discounts and promotions, according to resear...

Frauds that use credit-push are on the rise. Every participant in the payments ecosystem needs to be aware of how to identify and help stop this crime. Credit-push fraud differs from traditional debit fraud, wherein a bank account makes unauthorized payments. In credit-push fraud, the criminal uses social engineering or phishing attacks. They use these to try and convince someone to send a payment...

Enabling real-time payments is vital for any bank or credit union to remain competitive. Consumers have grown accustomed to sending and receiving real-time payments through a variety of fintechs, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps. Demand for real-time payments has become even greater lately, as inflation makes the need to receive cash quickly more vital, and more and more people are working...

The U.S. — and much of the world — is facing an inflationary environment not seen in more than 40 years. Persistent, high inflation is proving to be stubborn and shows no sign of slowing down. This greatly affects businesses buying goods and services because it increases their prices and makes running their business more costly. On the supplier side, any delay in receiving payment for a product fr...

Although card payments have been around for 80 years, little has changed within the industry to keep up with ever-changing customer demands for digital payments and the explosive growth of innovation within the fintech industry. Many financial institutions that rely heavily on their legacy systems to offer their financial services are finding it more difficult to remain competitive amid the rapid...

Today’s technical decision-makers face pressure to increase the company’s revenue while keeping risk low in the consumer checkout process. If a customer’s legitimate payment transaction gets declined because a merchant’s tech isn’t advanced enough, this has the potential to result in a lost customer.  One of the most important parts of streamlining your payment process and increasing you...

Blackhawk Network, a California-based company in the prepaid, gift card, and payments industry, joined forces with NAPCO Research, the “research arm” of NAPCO Media, a B2B digital media company, for the fifth year. Their aim? To assess the in-store, online, and mobile gift card program experiences across more than 225 merchants. This time, their annual research has extended beyond the U.S. and inc...

Many financial institutions are in a time of transition. With the continuous decline in check volume,  it’s important for banks and credit unions to find efficiencies where they can. One area where financial institutions can realize immediate benefits is by outsourcing their item processing function. To learn more, PaymentsJournal sat with Joe Pachunka , CIO of Deposit Solutions at Fiserv, an...

Fraud and cyberattacks that target children are alarmingly on the rise. According to data from an upcoming report to be published by Javelin Strategy & Research, nearly $1 billion was lost to child ID fraud in 2021. Furthermore, 1 in 50 children were affected by child identity fraud during the past year and 1 in 45 minors’ personal information was exposed via data breaches in the past year. Th...

Times of rampant high inflation, such as that we are living in now, affect consumers and businesses in various ways. But one segment that is typically most adversely affected by inflation are workers who are paid an hourly wage. How can earned wage access make an impact? As inflation forces difficult spending and budgeting decisions in households across the country, this demographic is among the h...

There is a common misconception that business credit cards are only for midsize to large businesses, as small business owners commonly use personal credit cards for their businesses. Furthermore, marketing for business cards has not traditionally been targeted at small business owners. However, banks are starting to rethink that strategy. They see small businesses as essential for business card po...

For debit and credit card issuers, marketing has always been a pillar to growing the business: attracting new customers, activating those who have gone dormant, and finding incentives that increase business from active customers. As happened with so many elements of consumers’ lives, the fundamentals of their engagement with card accounts shifted after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring...

The ACH (Automated Clearing House) Network affects most Americans daily, having moved nearly $73 trillion in payments in 2021, according to Nacha, the organization that governs it.  As payments constantly evolve and become more digital and faster , the ACH Network is also evolving in order to meet the needs of both businesses and consumers. To learn more about how it is handling the new world...

Halfway through 2022, it’s not that the fight against payments fraud has shifted to a whole new ball game. While criminals’ tactics are ever-evolving, the real challenge lies in the breadth and complexity of the fraud. It’s many ball games on many fields, all at once, and that’s the environment confronted by card issuers, merchants, and consumers alike. Eric Kraus , Vice President of Fraud, Risk a...

Digital transformation is top of mind for financial institutions of all stripes, yet many are cautious when initiating such projects and unsure where to begin due to the inherent risk associated with modernizing legacy systems . This is especially true when it comes to modernizing payments systems. Today’s consumer wants to not only pay using traditional card-based methods, but also wants to use t...

There is a common misconception that today’s bank and credit union customers want to do everything in a digital channel. The fact is that when it comes to financial services, consumers often have high expectations: in-person assistance when help is needed, plus the convenience of on-demand, self-service digital and mobile channels. How can retail banks and ATMs help meet these expectations? ATMs p...

Digital innovation has transformed payments for businesses and consumers in recent years. One area that has lagged, however, is accounts receivable (AR). Many businesses still rely on manual, time-consuming, and costly processes when it comes to AR. But that’s beginning to change. Advanced technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are starting to transform...

The technology and payment rails to enable real-time payments in the U.S. already exist, though real-time and faster payments still have not entirely permeated the U.S. financial system. That’s because many of the more than 10,000 banks and credit unions in the U.S. today have been slow to adopt real-time payments. The reasons for this are myriad , including the complexity of integrating new payme...

Buy Now, Pay Later (also known as BNPL) as a consumer financing option—and, importantly, a merchant marketing tool—is a relatively recent arrival to the scene, if also a fresh branding of a not-so-new idea. PayPal’s June 15 announcement of its Pay Monthly product, allowing customers to make a purchase and break the payments over a period of six to 24 months, proved a good entry point for a Payment...