PaymentsJournal

It’s been about five years since real-time payments (RTP) became a reality in the U.S., and their popularity and adoption continue to skyrocket. According to a survey U.S. Bank  conducted among 1,000 financial executives across various industries in May and June of 2022, 56% said they will adopt real-time payments by 2024. Furthermore, 41% of companies described as “RTP leaders” saw an increa...

Faster payments and the user experience are the differentiators that will enable banks and credit unions to remain relevant and competitive. We’ve seen this gradual shift during the past decade as modern payments have undergone a significant transformation based on consumer expectations. And in the past few years, in particular, the shift has accelerated as the pandemic changed the way many are pa...

The year 2022 was one of global financial uncertainty and risk, and 2023 may bring more of the same. For executives in payments risk management, planning for the year ahead should involve taking this geopolitical and financial uncertainty into account and planning accordingly. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Sudhir Jha , senior vice president and head of Brighterion, a Mastercard company, and...

Cryptocurrencies have moved from a speculative asset to a practical one. One area in which crypto can serve and improve is the current business-to-business (B2B) payments space. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Daniel Artin, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Boost, and Elly Aiala , Chief Compliance Officer at Boost, joined Steve Murphy, Director of Commercial and Enterprise Payments...

To sustain their operations, businesses have more than their fair share of challenges to confront. With a recession imminent, climbing interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and a turbulent global climate, business executives have many AR issues to address, along with just keeping enough cash on hand. To get an in-depth look at what executives are struggling with, Versapay surveyed 1,000 C-leve...

Most of the narrative within the fintech and crypto space revolves around the decline of cash. But is cash really declining? Countries that have attempted to go cashless, such as Sweden, have backtracked these efforts to ensure that consumers still have access to cash when the occasion calls for it. “Cash is on the increase,” said Joe Myers, Executive Vice President of Global Banking at Diebold Ni...

For financial institutions, focusing on digital transformation has become extremely important. The shift to digitization accelerated during the pandemic when many people weren’t stepping foot into physical bank locations, keeping most of their interactions with banks virtual. PaymentsJournal recently sat with Whitney Stewart Russell , President of Digital Solutions at Fiserv, and Steve Murphy , Di...

As the holiday season approaches, merchants should be aware that as overall sales increase, so will fraud. In fact, the holiday season is an opportune time for fraudsters to strike. And merchants need to plan accordingly so that they are not overwhelmed. Fortunately, certain strategies and tools can help merchants adjust their fraud procedures. They can adjust in ways that avoid the need to hire a...

Fraud continues to pound embattled financial institutions, which are aiming to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated attacks. More organizations are realizing that fraud prevention tools and strategies must remain top of mind, which means investing heavily on the most effective tools on the market today. Great strides have been made thanks to powerful tools such as analytics, artificial intelli...

In the event of a possible recession, it’s important for acquirers to make their businesses as efficient as possible. Increasing sales is one important part of that, but so is reducing transaction fraud. Yet, being overzealous with transaction fraud detection has its risks. If false declines on transactions are too high, customers become frustrated and stop shopping with certain merchants. This ca...

The regulatory compliance world can be very complex, and with the rapid expansion of digital payments, it’s increasingly difficult to identify and stop fraudulent transactions from occurring. Technological solutions continue to evolve at an equally breakneck speed. But they have failed to keep up with the rapid-fire payments made by bad actors. This forces compliance analysts to manage the barrage...

Within the banking industry, it’s important to secure hardware as soon as you need it. This will ensure your operations continue to run at peak performance and to meet compliance requirements. Unfortunately, the procurement process has become slow and cumbersome for many financial institutions. This is due to supply chain snags, disparate systems and lack of resources to manage this necessary func...

For most financial institutions, modernization and digital transformation are top priorities, yet many still struggle in these efforts. Many are unsure where to start and also wary of the potential risks with modernizing legacy systems. Therefore, a large number of banks and credit unions are still in the beginning or exploratory phase of digital transformation. Yet these projects are more importa...

Data is the driving force behind key strategic decisions for any business. But, businesses have a tough time turning the wealth of data and insights into something actionable and tangible. How can cloud data help? Through their partnership, Mastercard and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are equipping organizations with the most up-to-date location and spending insights. This enables those organizations...

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...