The PaymentsJournal Podcast

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 […] The post The Card Payments...

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 […] The...

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 […] The post Assessing Merchant Gift Ca...

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 […] The post The Benefits...

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 […] The post Child Identity Fraud: How to Protect Children in an Increasingl...

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 […] The post Why Earned Wage Access Is Critical for Employe...

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 […] The post Nimble and...

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 […] The post Credit and Debit...

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 […] The post How the ACH Network Is Evolving...

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, […] The post What Debit and Credit Card Issuers Need to Kno...

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 […] The post What to Expect from Diebo...

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 […] The post Next-Gen ATMs Are a Key Pa...

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 […] Th...

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 […] The post Why Banks and Credit Unions Need to Adopt R...

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 […] The post Reexamining Buy Now, Pay Later as PayPal Makes a...

Merchants, their acquiring banks, and payment service providers (PSPs) all face a daunting challenge: They’re under pressure to reduce ever-increasing transaction fraud while at the same time increasing revenue by taking on more volume with less friction for customers and merchants where sales are made.  According to Amyn Dhala, Chief Product Officer at Brighterion, a […] The post Putti...

It’s 2022 and many consumers are splitting restaurant bills with peer-to-peer (P2P) apps and initiating a wide range of payments without having ever written a check, or in some cases, even having a checkbook.  On the flip side, according to Payveris Chief Innovation Officer Marcell King, some consumers are making big-ticket monthly payments for items […] The post Expanding the Methods a...

Like companies in other realms of financial services, credit unions must grapple with how to build the experiences their members want in a world that is increasingly digital, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As more and more of their members adopt digital tools to access their accounts and engage with their financial […] The post How Credit Unions Can Create Better Cust...

Payment facilitation, or PayFac, is quickly becoming table stakes for many merchants. With new technology diversifying payment methods across all industries, merchants are clamoring for streamlined payment acceptance functionality. Businesses are increasingly looking toward independent software vendors (ISVs) to provide those services, and those ISVs want to deliver fast and easy payment acceptanc...

One needn’t look far to see that neobanks and other types of digital-only banks — the upstarts in financial services — have altered retail banking.  These numbers tell part of the story:  But there’s more: The five-year projection from 2021 to 2025, shows that the number of U.S. accountholders at neobanks will rise from 29.8 […] The post How Traditional FIs Can Meet the Rising Chal...

For any leader of an organization steeped in payments — banks, fintechs, and technology providers — it’s a time of great opportunity and great complexity.   Customer demand for instant payments, instant credit decisioning, and more-frictionless payments is increasing. Borders are coming down, at least in the realm of transactions, creating a need for solutions that […] The post Clo...

The many digital touchpoints today’s consumers use to connect with merchants and buy products have been a boon for businesses. Merchants have many different digital avenues to meet customers where they are and enable quick and seamless payments options for products and services. While this digital world has created convenience, it has also created ample opportunities […] The post How Me...

In the current environment of high inflation, soaring gas prices, and threat of recession, consumers are looking to get the most out of their purchases and being judicious about where they spend their money. That is why rewards programs are more critical today than ever; merchants and businesses need the right rewards program in place […] The post How Gift Cards Are Reshaping the Loyalty Pro...

Real-time payments occupy a unique niche in the payments industry, both for its diversity and its rapid growth. The Clearing House RTP® network processes more than $16 billion each quarter, and Zelle processes more than $120 billion. Direct push payments such as Mastercard Send and Visa Direct settle payments in less than thirty minutes and […] The post Why Banks and Credit Unions Need Multi...

The payments systems infrastructure at many traditional financial institutions — banks and credit unions — is showing its age at a time when new, nimble players are entering the space. These lumbering systems, many of which were constructed 50 years ago for electronic funds transfers and card services, are being left behind entirely by fintechs, […] The post Unburdening Financial Institution...