Instant Payments, Unicorns And Food Fights Top Week’s News

Looking forward to the holiday weekend? So are we — but not before we give you a chance to catch up on the important payments and commerce news you might have missed. We have stories about a major move in healthcare payments, possible changes for NCR, updates about instant payments, artificial intelligence and contactless transit fares — along with an interview with Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the web. Come join us before you start firing up those barbecues.

Top  Performers

Citi: Why and How to Bring More Collaboration to Payments

There is no “i” in team — every coach’s mantra. Guess what, though? That’s only half the story when it comes to the concept of working together for the greater good. As it turns out, “payments is a team sport,” at least in the view of Manish Kohli, global head of payments and receivables at Citi.

What Will it Take to Hit the Instant Payments Tipping Point?

Instant payments is an innovation that doesn’t require much explanation. Getting immediate access to money is an obviously better solution than waiting for the check to arrive in the mail, or constantly refreshing a mobile banking app to see if transferred funds have been cleared for use.

Warburg Pincus in Talks to Buy NCR

NCR, the payments company that makes self-service kiosks, point-of-sale terminals and automated teller machines, among other payment devices, has reportedly tapped Bank of America Equities to find a buyer.

JPMorgan Buys InstaMed For $500M

In a bid to expand its healthcare payments presence, JPMorgan said that it has entered a deal to acquire InstaMed, a payments technology company focused on the space.

Why Anyone Can Be a Unicorn Now

The news of Nextdoor.com’s capital raise and $2.1 billion valuation happened at the same time that media and analysts continue to pile onto Uber — namely, its disappointing IPO performance, its valuation on the lead-up to the IPO and now its questionable market cap. Karen Webster digs deep into this particular part of payments and commerce.

Visa, Chase Team to Launch Contactless at NYC Mass Transit

In an new PYMNTS discussion, Dan Sanford, Visa’s global head of contactless payments, talked with Karen Webster about the May 31 launch of a contactless payments pilot involving the MTA in New York City and Chase. The MTA, according to Visa, becomes the first U.S. transit agency to implement contactless payments using Visa’s global transit framework. That means riders can use any Visa credential — whether it’s a Visa contactless card, mobile device or wearable — to pay for rides (along with other retail purchases, of course).

Trackers and Reports

Wallets Versus Stored Credentials: How Consumers Shop and Play With Smartphones

Consumers use their smartphones to shop for everything, everywhere — including using them to help them shop in-store. What’s more, consumers who use their smartphones while shopping in-store visit them more often than consumers who don’t. As much as 81.5 percent of consumers who do say they visit brick-and-mortar shops every day or every week.

Why AI Could Be Fashion Rental Platforms’ Next Big Thing

The May edition of the Payments and the Platform Economy Playbook analyzes the ways customer service is impacting the rise of the sharing economy. The Playbook also looks at how customer service is becoming a more competitive advantage for companies within the economy, which are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), application platform interfaces (APIs) and other technologies to create new channels for service and customer communication.

Fun, Cool and Otherwise Notable

Tim Berners-Lee On Building a New Web

For Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing and giving away the World Wide Web protocol that shaped the internet as we know it today, the web at its best has always been about being decentralized. Learn more from a new PYMNTS interview with him.

When Brexit Literally Turned Into a Food Fight

Usually, when a situation is described as a food fight, the term is used in a colorful way. Adults, after all, do not normally throw food at each other — and so the claim typically signals that the participants in the dispute have regressed to their most childish and intractable selves.

Imitation Meat, Loyalty On Demand and Remote Ordering: The Shape-Shifting of Dining In 2019

As is usually the case, there was plenty to see — and even more to eat — in the National Restaurant Show this week. During the early part of the week, 43,000 attendees descended on Chicago’s McCormick Place to feast on food samples, experiment with new cooking technology and wander among tables at an exhibition the size of 22 football fields, trying to get a taste for what’s next in in the industry.