The three months ended March 31 were an eventful time for Apple Inc., as they were for most companies, but unlike many the company managed to largely contain the damage wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic. “We’ve seen our products take on renewed interest” in the wake of Covid-19 and the …
Read More »Sour Ratings for Some Payments Companies and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 4/30/20
Citing the risk to their businesses from the coronavirus pandemic, securities rating agency Fitch Ratings revised its outlook to negative for seven publicly traded consumer-finance companies, including American Express Co., Discover Financial Services, and Synchrony Financial.Main Event Entertainment Inc. issued a notification indicating malware collected data from cards used on point-of-sale devices for food-and-beverage and entertainment …
Read More »Shelter-in-Place Policies Give eBay a Lift As Its Managed-Payments Platform Expands
E-commerce sites have been beneficiaries of shelter-at-home policies, and on Wednesday eBay Inc. indicated its marketplace has been no exception. But growth was tempered by a downdraft in classified listings and a widening trend toward state Internet sales taxes, the company said. Meanwhile, eBay’s venture into running payments for sellers …
Read More »Mastercard Volumes Beginning To Show Some Stabilization after Sharp Drop-Off
Mastercard Inc. managed to remain profitable in the first quarter as the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep the world, and its volume and transaction data for April indicate a possible bottoming out of the steep decline in consumer and business spending. U.S. dollar volume switched over Mastercard’s network in the …
Read More »Euronet Transfer Volume up 3% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 4/29/20
Money-transfer specialist and ATM operator Euronet Worldwide Inc. reported 27.4 million money-transfer transactions in the first quarter of 2020, up 3% from 26.6 million a year ago. Euronet said its ATM count of 42,176 at the end of the quarter is up from 42,034 last year. The company just acquired Dolphin Debit, a …
Read More »As Online Usage Surges, Watch Out for an Even Bigger Jump in Fraud, Experts Warn
Payments fraud was already rising, and now experts predict increased online usage brought on by stay-at-home orders will only exacerbate the trend. While losses haven’t shown up yet, e-commerce activity taking place now is sowing the seeds of a dramatic jump in coming months. “Fraud is always a trailing activity,” …
Read More »$4 Trillion in Payment-Facilitator Global Processing Volume Forecasted by 2025
The payment-facilitator model isn’t likely to slow down any time soon. A new report predicts payment volume made via payment facilitators will top $4 trillion annually by 2025. Payment facilitators enable merchants to process payments under the banner of an organization that manages the payment connections and liability without requiring …
Read More »A Plunge in T&E Spending Hits AmEx As It Copes With the Pandemic’s Worldwide Impact
A trend toward a near-total collapse in travel-and-entertainment spending helped drive down overall first-quarter card volume and discount revenue for American Express Co., the company reported Friday. “March was a very difficult month,” Stephen Squeri, AmEx’s chairman and chief executive, told stock analysts during a morning conference call. As with …
Read More »EMS and Womply Pair To Aid Merchant PPP Applications and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 4/24/20
Independent sales organization Electronic Merchant Systems said it is working with Womply, a software and data-services provider for small businesses, to help merchants find lenders offering quick access to loan applications through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, a Covid-19 relief effort.For the first time, ransomware incidents overtook payment card data when comparing the …
Read More »Led by a Near Grounding of Travel Spending, Discover’s Volume Is Off 29% in April
Discover cardholders might not jet around the country like many American Express cardholders do, but it’s still telling that Discover’s travel spending volume has plunged 99% this month as governmental stay-at-home orders and business closures to control the Covid-19 pandemic chill the economy. The near grounding of travel spending was …
Read More »
