POS and Retail

Intent on rapidly capturing the value and benefits of these new services, companies too often take a path of least resistance to cloud assessment and operational planning, writes Justin Yunag, chief digital officer, financial services for Atos North America Operations.

Marks & Spencer is the first major U.K. retailer to launch a mobile scanning and payment app in its stores. Several U.K. supermarket chains have launched pilots of cashierless and checkout-free mobile shopping, but have yet to roll out services.

Allowing third-party access to bank data will open up the opportunity for far wider data aggregation than previously possible, writes Huw Davies, CCO of Token.

The fintech wave has nearly devoured the entire point of sale industry, as lone major holdout Ingenico weighs an unsolicited bid from an investment bank’s payments group.

The payments industry stood out as an active market for mergers and acquisitions during the first three quarters of 2018 with a 33 percent increase in transactions over the same period last year.

To remain competitive, retailers must always have one eye on the future. Mobile wallets offer a strategic platform for retailers to harness and promote emerging payment models, writes Julian Wallis, retail director at Rambus.

PayPal and Walmart are offering a cash-in and cash-out service from PayPal accounts within Walmart stores. It's the first time Walmart, one of the founders the defunct Merchant Customer Exchange, will accept a third-party mobile wallet.

Worldpay is combining the Worldpay Bankout solution, which will now deliver to 154 direct bank disbursement destinations, and Worldpay FastAccess enabled by Visa Direct.

While the fintechs that offer merchant loans usually argue they’re lending to the ultra-small businesses that banks don't serve, competitive forces will bring the technology companies deeper into banks’ domain.

Square CFO Sarah Friar, who helped lead the company's many forays into financial services, is leaving Square to become CEO of Nextdoor, a social network for local neighborhoods.

The Gap has selected Adyen as its processor for four European markets as part of a plan to replace a web of relationships with local networks and legacy payment systems with a single view of payments and customer data.

First Data is adding BlueSnap's e-commerce tools to consolidate the expanding menu of payment options that acquirers and financial institutions must juggle.

At Tropical Smoothie, a new IT project will deploy new cloud-hosted point of sale terminals, handheld devices and kitchen display systems over the next few weeks across its 700-location footprint.

For banks, initially concerned that PSD2 would allow others to come between them and their customers, the prize comes in keeping themselves at the center of their customers’ digital banking experience, writes Huw Davies, CCO of Token.

Adobe is moving forward with the next phase of integrating acquired e-commerce platform Magento into its broader marketing services by rolling out Magento Payments next year.

Amazon has signaled an interest in the French grocery market, spurring Casino's development of a high-tech concept store in Paris.

Collaboration between banks and fintechs still lags, hurting security initiatives such as an authentication hub.

Emotional connections can make a difference when consumers have many different ways to shop and pay, according to Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce.

Payment forms on e-commerce sites are the most common target for formjacking attackers, writes Robert Capps, vice president and authentication strategist for NuData Security.

The technology arms race among payment fintechs is converging on the market for credit and loans, with Square rolling out an installment payment option for consumers that complements its merchant capital option for sellers.