Digital payments

Despite PayPal's efforts to get people to receive — and spend — their stimulus checks from PayPal accounts, the coronavirus pandemic caused its revenue for the first quarter to come in below company guidance.

There is one area of commerce that has experienced an uneven consumer response to the coronavirus crisis: subscriptions. Some companies have benefited greatly while others have not.

Consumer remittance behaviors are being forced to change, with senders and recipients moving to mobile wallets, bank accounts, and cards. But many still want cash.

The short-term coronavirus response revealed most merchants will need a more robust option for digital payments — and that’s prompting fresh investment in what was expected to be a slow period.

Visa pulled its financial outlook for the rest of the year, but it already has visibility into permanent changes that result from the coronavirus — such as an aversion to handling cash.

Fears of catching coronavirus during the payment process has given a sharp boost in usage and awareness of contactless payments since the pandemic began, according to a new survey from Mastercard.

Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga says he is certain that science, medicine and innovation will lead the world out of the coronavirus pandemic, but there is little indication of when that will happen.

Like other businesses, hospitals have been forced to make instant emergency changes because of the coronavirus. But many hospitals are concurrently getting a rush of demand for service with an unclear revenue stream.

Merchant acquiring is a very face-to-face, sales-oriented business. And that culture has to change before any acquirers can convince their clients that they know how to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.

Businesses have turned to workarounds to accommodate the coronavirus’ impact on brick-and-mortar stores, emergency measures that will likely become permanent in order for these businesses to survive into the future.

Fast-moving payments innovation was already threatening comfortable connections between consumers and businesses before the pandemic turned the trend into an outright crisis.

Just as U.S. lawmakers are ramping up demand for a digital dollar, Facebook's Libra project is dialing back its scope.

As the market deals with the short-term challenge of getting stimulus payments into the hands of citizens, the country has a unique opportunity to put the unbanked and underbanked on a long-term path to electronic payment methods, Jim Johnson of FIS says.

As the market deals with the short-term challenge of getting trillions of dollars of relief and stimulus payments into the hands of citizens in the coming weeks and months, we as a country have a unique opportunity to put our unbanked and underbanked citizens on a long-term path to electronic payment methods, says FIS' Jim Johnson.

As millions of U.S. consumers are beginning to see stimulus checks electronically deposited into their bank accounts as part of the CARES Act, many companies are wondering how Americans will spend these funds.

Though NFC adoption is still somewhat patchwork in the U.S., new data suggests contactless payment transaction volume is rising during the coronavirus outbreak, giving an advantage to banks and merchants that enabled it early.

Commonwealth of Australia (CBA) reports digital wallet users spent a AUS$1 billion (about $630 million) in March 2020, a high for the bank that's part of an acceleration to digital wallets and contactless cards during the coronavirus crisis.

While reports of toilet paper and hand-sanitizer shortages may be common stories on the nightly news, one consumer goods category is flying off the shelves at an even faster pace, one never seen before – guns and ammunition, increasing payments volume for gun shops, a merchant category financial service providers traditionally avoid.

The coronavirus has accelerated a move toward a public option for digital wallets that would tie government authentication to payment transactions. If successful, this could be the catalyst for a national digital identity system.

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to force a great leap forward in the fight to crush paper checks, which still account for about half of B2B payments, by moving more invoice payments online.