Friday , March 29, 2024

27% of Consumers Late on a Bill and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/18/20

  • Twenty-seven percent of U.S. consumers are past due on an at least one bill and nearly 50% will need a year to catch up on bills because of the Covid-19 pandemic, finds a study from YouGov and ACI Worldwide Inc. Of the nearly 1,400 surveyed, 81% said their mortgages and 78% said their rents were top bill-payment priorities. ACI Worldwide recently acquired Speedpay Inc., formerly the bill-payment unit of The Western Union Co.
  • Research firm RBR said the number of point-of-sale terminals that allow contactless payments increased 60% in 2018 to reach 66 million, according to its “Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2024” report. As of 2018, 15% of all card payments globally were made with a contactless card.
  • Chargebacks911 said it will offer its first set of Chargeback University seminars, its educational webinar series.
  • The Merchant Risk Council said Julie Fergerson, one of the association’s five founders, was named chief executive officer. Fergerson, previously chair of the MRC global board of directors, worked at Ethoca, which Mastercard Inc. purchased in 2019, as senior vice president of industry solutions.
  • Co-Op Financial Services announced Jim Hanisch, Co-Op Network president, will retire June 2 after 19 years with the credit-union service organization. Hanisch took his current position in 2018 and is responsible for Co-Op’s ATM and shared-branch services. Hanisch has been involved with credit unions since the late 1970s and Co-Op since 1986. He led product development for the Connex platform while at Deluxe Data Systems, now part of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS).
  • In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, American Express Co. CEO Stephen Squeri said most employees should plan on working at home for the rest of the year, Reuters reported. In a video message to employees Monday, Squeri said he expects it will take “several months” for AmEx’s offices to reopen, and the process will be done on a location-by-location basis.

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