Amazon expands 'palm payment', Toast reverses a 99-cent fee and more

July 21, 2023 3:59 PM

Amazon expands "palm payment" at Whole Foods, Toast reverses 99-cent restaurant-order fee, Plaid expands open-banking reach and more in the weekly banking news roundup.

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Toast reverses plan for 99-cent restaurant-order fee

The restaurant-management technology and payments firm Toast has reversed course on a plan to add a 99-cent "order-processing" fee to all online purchases from eateries using Toast software, Marketwatch reports. The Boston-based fintech said in a July 19 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the fee, which Toast began testing earlier this year, will be removed from the firm's new cloud-based digital-ordering platform. Toast planned to roll out the mandatory fee this month, but it generated negative feedback from consumers and restaurants. –Kate Fitzgerald

A pedestrian walks past Whole Foods Market signage outside a store in downtown Los Angeles.

Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

Amazon expands 'palm payment' at Whole Foods

Amazon plans to deploy Amazon One at Whole Foods' entire chain, or more than 500 locations, by the end of 2023. Amazon One enables consumers to scan images of their palms, which are then linked to their e-commerce accounts. The consumer then uses their palm to make a payment at an Amazon One terminal. The feature is part of a strategy at Amazon to migrate away from cards and smartphones to make payments, and is a companion to Amazon Go's checkout-free model and other in-store payment technology such as Amazon's Dash Cart, which embeds sensors in shopping carts. Amazon One debuted as an option at Amazon Go stores and has since expanded to about 200 Whole Foods locations and other merchants such as Panera Bread and Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies' home stadium. —John Adams .

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Apple preps for wide rollout of recurring Apple Cash transactions this fall

U.S. Apple customers are able to set up weekly, biweekly and monthly recurring transfers through Apple Cash, Apple's peer-to–peer payments service, following the beta launch this month of iOS 17, Android Authority reports. Customers may also use the feature to automatically add funds to Apple Cash within the Apple wallet. The feature is expected to be broadly available to Apple device users this fall when iOS rolls out broadly. —Kate Fitzgerald

Plaid expands open-banking reach

The financial data company Plaid has partnered with the digital-banking firm Bankjoy to expand access to fintech apps for Bankjoy's clients. The banks and financial institutions that use Bankjoy will offer their customers access to Plaid's network of about 8,000 fintech apps and services through an application programming interface. Plaid's core product enables data sharing between banks and third-party firms through open-banking technology. Bankjoy plans to enable a single location to access these third-party apps, potentially reducing the need for banks and credit unions to manage multiple connections to expand services to consumers. —John Adams

PayNearMe integrates Cash App for bill payments

The payments fintech PayNearMe, which operates a network to accept consumer bill payments with cash through walk-in retail locations, text messages, email, over the phone and online now enables billers on PayNearMe's platform to accept payments from Block's Cash App, according to a press release. The move comes about two years after Cash App began enabling merchants outside of Square's network to accept payments through its QR code-based Cash App Pay mode. Block recently said Cash App has 53 million monthly active users. —Kate Fitzgerald