MENA Platforms Leverage Social Commerce to Appeal to Connected Consumers

Lendica’s embedded finance integrations are now available for Shopify and Salesforce. With these new integrations, customers can use the PayLater and FundNow products to delay payments to their vendors or speed up collection from wholesale accounts, Lendica said in a Wednesday (Feb. 1) press release. “We founded Lendica to...

Product returns as we’ve known it is getting an overhaul as retailers and payment partners find new ways of offering good experiences without losing their shirts. PYMNTS’ Karen Webster was joined by David Sobie, vice president of PayPal’s Happy Returns service, and Drew Cook, chief financial officer and head of operations at sustainable clothing brand Pact, for an episode of SMB-TV that explored the changes coming to retail returns.

Unbanked and Mastercard have partnered to accelerate decentralized finance (DeFi) card issuance in Europe. Through this partnership, the two companies will use their existing footprint in the United Kingdom and the continent to work with Web3 organizations to enable the issuance of cryptocurrency-powered card programs, the companies said in a Thursday (Feb. 2) press release.

Software firm ACI Worldwide says it is expanding amid a global boom in real-time payments. The expansion means ACI now covers about a third of the world’s countries that offer real-time payments services, the company said in a Wednesday (Feb. 1). “ACI now powers 25 domestic and pan-regional real-time...

Airswift and Cloud Payments have teamed to simplify cryptocurrency payments with Visa and Mastercard. Airswift, a crypto payments provider, announced the partnership in a Thursday (Feb. 2) news release, saying it would “enable cryptocurrency spenders with instant access to crypto at the points-of-sale” using Visa and Mastercard payment.

Consumer behavior will continue to drive payments innovation, says Alexandra Johnson, head of bank Innovation at Bank of America, in the PYMNTS eBook, “2023 Payments New Year’s Resolutions.”. The unexpected and unpredictable are becoming more common than we previously thought normal. We head into another “unprecedented” year where...

Healthcare remains among the most paper-based industries in America, which means stakeholders from patients to providers to payers are missing out on digital efficiencies. Probing the intractable use of paper and steps required to change it, PYMNTS’ Karen Webster was joined by Bank of America (BoA) Managing Director, Co-Head Global Commercial Banking Sue Caras; Kaiser Permanente Vice President and Assistant Treasurer, Cash Management Sheila Stephens; and Cigna Treasury Managing Director and Assistant Treasurer Scott Lambert.

Mastercard is working with open finance platform Ayoconnect to bolster financial inclusion in Indonesia. “With open banking, the unbanked population in Indonesia will have access to various financial products, moreover, consumers can be responsible and aware of their digital financial footprint to fully understand their financial position and spending habits to monthly payments,” Ayoconnect announced on its LinkedIn page Tuesday (Jan. 31).

MaterialsXchange has updated its B2B marketplace for lumber, panels and other building material products. The marketplace now includes a streamlined ordering process that lets suppliers offer an ask/bid pricing structure that allows prices to be negotiated and transactions to occur instantly. It also enables buyers to receive alerts or order products directly, MaterialsXchange said in a Wednesday (Feb. 1) press release.

Toggle Market has expanded its B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution to Rwanda. The Toggle Finance product was already available across Europe, the Middle East and in four other African countries: Congo, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, Toggle Market said in a Wednesday (Feb. 1) press release. “We are...

Intelligence platform Craft has raised $32 million to help companies track supplier networks. The company announced the Series B equity financing Wednesday (Feb. 1), saying it would use the funds to accelerate research and development and deepen its go-to-market execution. Based in San Francisco, Craft offers a data platform that...

With 2023 off to a running start, treasury is calling the shots differently, with a refined focus forged in the crucible of 2022. Julie Lubell, global head of Trends and Advisory at J.P. Morgan Payments, discussed with Karen Webster the new roadmap for investing and corporate strategies that take the triumphs and failures of the past three years and create something new.

Comfortable shoes, widespread product distribution and marketing are paying off for Skechers. The footwear and apparel brand has achieved four consecutive quarters of record sales and reached annual sales of $7.4 billion in 2022 — a total that was 18% higher than that of the previous year, Skechers said in a Thursday (Feb. 2) press release.

Starbucks continues to grow its loyalty base, but upcoming unwelcome alterations could change that. The coffeehouse chain, the world’s largest restaurant company by revenue, shared in its first-quarter 2023 financial results Thursday (Feb. 2) that its loyalty program’s 90-day active membership base grew 15% year over year to 30.4 million.

The U.K. government has published the results of its consultation into digital identities. The findings, published Friday (Feb. 3), set the stage for future legislation and will form the country’s digital identity framework as it is developed and rolled out. In a foreword to Friday’s consultation paper, Julia Lopez,...

Coda Payments has appointed former Worldpay executive Shane Happach as CEO. The provider of cross-border payments and distribution solutions to digital content publishers said in a Thursday (Feb. 2) press release that Happach will relocate to Singapore and assume the role in May. “Shane is a seasoned payments executive and...

PYMNTS’ latest research shows that most bill-paying consumers in the United States face challenges in the bill payment process. In the last 90 days, more than half faced at least one pain point, such as a lack of payment options or security concerns. “The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook: Friction...

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to change the world – but will it change commerce?. You’d be forgiven for thinking the world’s gone AI crazy these past few weeks. Indeed it has, in a way. At the end of last month, Microsoft said it would invest $10 billion in ChatGPT firm OpenAI.

Even small changes may reap cost-cutting rewards for small businesses seeking to weather 2023’s projected rocky road. Economic news over the past few days has felt grim. Grocers are seeing even their higher-income customers buy less, and interest rate hikes are influencing the shopping behaviors of the same demographic. Discretionary items such as smartphones are also experiencing record sales slumps.

Quicken’s personal finance app now lets users share their financial information with trusted parties. With this new feature of the Simplifi app, spouses can share information to align their budgeting, parents can help their children develop healthy financial habits, and users can help their aging parents manage their finances, Quicken said in a Wednesday (Feb. 1) press release.