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Editors’ Picks
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Social CommerceThe Lucrative Advertising Life Of Instafamous Kids
On June 3, 2019, a star was born. Her name is Alessi Ren Luyendyk. If you are wondering why a random four-month-old...
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NewsWeWork Woes, AI Views And Gig Economy Pay Top Week’s News
Happy weekend! You might have missed some vital payments and commerce news this busy week, but the PYMNTS Weekender has you covered....
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Sizzle/FizzleBig Fizzle: Marcus Libra Optimism A Fizzle In The Making?
Optimism can be contagious. A can-do attitude can rally the troops, get things done, spark innovation where once the status quo was,...
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RetailTarget And Other Retailers Give Augmented Reality A Deeper Look
Augmented reality (AR) is getting a new look in retail – with one of the most recent developments coming from Target. According...
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Internet of ThingsSmart Rosary Beads And Other Ways Churches Are Building Their Digital Flock
According to data released by Pew this week, America’s churches have an attendance problem. In a telephone survey conducted between this year and...
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InnovationWho Will Use Self-Driving Cars?
Last week, Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle business, announced that completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way – at least for customers...
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B2B PaymentsInvestors Back Different Points Of The Procure-To-Pay Ecosystem
It was a week of (mostly) Series A funding rounds for B2B FinTech firms, as startups secured new funding to tackle various...
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B2B PaymentsHow Smart Contract Tech Moves To Lower Freight Factoring Costs
When it comes to B2B payments’ late payment problem, the root of the matter can often be traced to a lack of...
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Payments InnovationMastercard and Branch To Fast-Track Pay For Hourly Workers
That instant payments have been a significant boon to workers in the gig economy is almost inarguable. A glance at the data...
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Gig EconomyHow TaskRabbit, With IKEA, Is Reshaping The Gig Economy
One of the basics of platform design and ignition is getting “anchor tenants” on board who — given their size, scale and...
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Travel PaymentsWhy Payments Is Bringing More Adventure To Travel
Travel today is much more than backpacks and hostels (those were the days), beaches or amusement parks and free buffet breakfasts at...
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Identity theftProtecting The Youngest — And Most Vulnerable — ID Theft Victims
Fraudsters are preying on children, pilfering Social Security numbers and other data to commit identity theft, run up charges and ruin credit....
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CryptocurrencyLibra As Patriotic Duty?
To paraphrase an old saying: Patriotism is the last refuge of … crypto. In the latest salvo designed to bring Libra back...
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EarningsSunTrust Beats Revenue Forecast Ahead Of BB&T Merger
SunTrust Banks Inc. reported results on Thursday (Oct. 17) that surpassed revenue expectations but fell in line with analysts’ earnings estimates for the...
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Security & FraudEdible Barcodes Turn Sights On Counterfeit Goods
As the global digital economy grows, and consumers buy more items from their mobile and other web-connected devices, a problem grows along...
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EarningsAhead Of Suntrust Merger, BB&T Sees Strong Loan Growth, Credit Quality
BB&T Corp., ahead of its planned buy of SunTrust banks, posted results that beat expectations and showed a slight decrease in non-performing...
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RetailFixing The Friction In Furniture With VR And Holograms
Italian luxury furniture brand Natuzzi has not historically been known for high-tech offerings. Founded in 1959 by Pasquale Natuzzi, the brand’s began...
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RetailDelivering Superfoods To Consumers In the Shape of Nutrition Bars
Atlas Bar Founder James Oliver has always had an interest in nutrition and the effects that certain foods can have on performance. He...
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RetailTeens’ Changing Tastes – And Lower Spending – Drive Retail Innovation
Teens have been big drivers of commerce for going on a century now, and that’s even more prevalent as marketers find more...
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InvestmentsIndia VC Funds Flow Into B2B (FinTech) Space
The deals seem to be getting bigger headed into the last few weeks of the year. In the latest FinTech funding activity...
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RegulationHow New Authentication And Privacy Regulations Affect Retail
How are European Union (EU) merchants and payment providers faring one month post-strong customer authentication (SCA) implementation? According to a study by...
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B2B PaymentsAML Compliance Isn’t Just Banks’ Burden
Regulatory pressures and market forces are pushing the world’s financial institutions (FIs) to ramp up their anti-money laundering (AML) strategies. As this...
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B2B PaymentsCross-Border Payments Pilots, Networks Take Aim At Supply Chains
To gain speed and transparency, cross border payments need new infrastructure. Recent news show partnerships among banks, and in some cases, consortiums...
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B2B PaymentsWhat Faster Payments Means For SMBs’ Multi-Bank Relationships
Without regulatory mandates, the Open Banking wave is crashing on the shores of the U.S. financial services (FinServ) sector. Market pressures and...
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Consumer AuthenticationHow Pre-Authorization Risk Checks Are Payments Wave Of The Future
The earlier, the better, right? That ancient wisdom would certainly seem to hold true in this quickly changing world of payments, a...
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Payments InnovationThe Invisible Opportunities In Integrated Payments
Consumers may not spend much time thinking about payments, but they certainly have expectations for them. High expectations, in fact: As the...
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Consumer FinanceWhy Simple And Instant Is The Secret To Making Rebates Truly Rewarding
Rebates and cash-back offers sound great in theory — the customer purchases something they wanted anyway, and get a small incentive payment...
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EarningsNetflix Earnings Soar, But Subscribers Slip As New Streaming Players Spin Up
Netflix’s results were somewhat mixed when the streaming giant released its earnings figures Wednesday afternoon (Oct. 16), the market’s response to them...
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InnovationGoogle’s Plan To Make Its Assistant Ubiquitous And Invisible
The cool weather was slow to show up in some parts of the U.S. this year (although the pumpkin spice-flavored goods showed...
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CFPBCFPB’s Debt Collection, Payday Lending Rules Come Under Fire In Congressional Hearing
Payday lending practices again came under fire Wednesday (Oct. 16) from members of the U.S. Congress, as Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer...
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EarningsBank of America Sees 76 Pct Boost In Q3 Zelle Payments
Zelle P2P payments increased 76 percent year-over-year (YoY) in the third quarter of 2019, Bank of America said on Wednesday (Oct. 16), signaling the...
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EconomyRetail Sales Slump Raises Questions About Consumer Spending
One of the laws of physics, loosely phrased, is that an object in motion stays in motion, on its path, until outside...
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RetailDisrupting The $31 Billion Toilet Paper Industry
While toilet paper seems like a product that should have been around for as long as there has been commerce, it actually...
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RetailCurating Amenities For Homeshare Guests With Subscription Boxes
Before Nick Chen helped start his hospitality subscription box company, ‘Welcome, he and his business partner took a trip with some friends. They...
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RetailWhat’s Behind The Drop In US Retail Sales?
Retail sales in the U.S. decreased 0.3 percent September 2019, the first such decline in seven months, according to figures released Wednesday...
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B2B PaymentsWirecard Again Facing Accounting Fraud Allegations
Germany-based Wirecard is once again facing allegations of accounting fraud by the Financial Times (FT). The FT reported this week that its...
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B2B PaymentsReal-Time Data Takes On Magnitude Of Supply Chain Risks
When Pitney Bowes, a major logistics service provider, revealed that it had fallen victim to a ransomware attack, it was only the...
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Digital PaymentsCiti On Simplifying Cross-Border Payments
The buyer is in Canada. The seller is in Singapore. The transaction wends its way across borders, in the middle of the night,...
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Restaurant innovationGet Ready For A More Intimate, Data-Driven QSR Experience
Fast food and QSR operations are trying to do more than old-fashioned mass meal production. Customization is coming into its own in...
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Credit UnionsCredit Unions Shun Online Ads For Content To Acquire Customers
In August, Facebook instituted changes to its advertising policies as the result of a settlement it reached with anti-discrimination groups and the...
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EarningsRed Ink Marks Marcus — And Goldman Sachs’ Risky Consumer Bet
There are advantages to moving downstream — gaining new customers, of course, is a goal for any company. Yet, for Goldman Sachs’...
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EarningsWells Says Today’s Costly Investments Is Tomorrow’s Innovation In Progress
Wells Fargo managed to a slight beat when it came revenue predictions when it announced earnings earlier today (Oct. 15) — but...
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EarningsChase Sees Active Mobile Customers, Card Loans Grow in Q3
Amid the companies kicking off earnings season, JPMorgan Chase and Co. reported results that showed consumer spending remains resilient in the face...
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EarningsCiti’s ‘Unpredictable Q3’ Sees Growth In Treasury Unit
Citigroup had a flat third quarter but reported year-over-year gains in treasury and trade solutions services for that period. The financial institution,...
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RetailCreating The New Omnichannel Wellness Experience
Digital wellness brands are something of a dime a dozen these days on the web — whatever serum, treatment or regimen based...
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RetailRetail Innovation Is Not Just About Young Consumers
When it comes to retail innovation, it’s not just young consumers who are driving change — so are older shoppers and an...
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RetailHow Platform Economy Innovators Aim To Reduce eCommerce Friction
In the platform economy, marketplaces and their partners want to satisfy shoppers who are comfortable with eCommerce and expect seamless payments experiences....
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NewsThe Fortnite Black Hole — And What’s Next
In the year 2017 the world met Fortnite as it now knows it — a multiplayer “Battle Royale” competition that allows players...
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B2B PaymentsAP Solutions: A Spotlight on Suppliers
Automated solutions provider AvidXchange recently acquired BankTEL Systems. The move enables the BankTEL Systems’ customers to access AvidXchange’s suite of invoice-to-pay solutions,...
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B2B PaymentsAmid FinTech/FI Pacts, Governments Join Development Efforts
FinTechs and FIs are increasingly looking to bring payments and financial services cross border. Governments are looking across borders, too, to form...
