Today In Payments: Visa Teams With Airbnb On Faster Host Payments; Fiserv Delivers POS QR Codes With PayPal And Venmo

In today’s top news, Airbnb hosts can now use Visa Direct to up their cash flow, and Fiserv is teaming with PayPal and Venmo to bring QR codes to the point-of-sale (POS). Plus, Alphabet’s retail and shoppable content sectors grew in Q1.

Visa Teams With Airbnb To Facilitate Faster Host Payments

Visa and Airbnb are teaming up to help hosts improve their cash flow. With Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time push payments platform, Airbnb hosts can now easily move money from Airbnb to a bank account linked to a Visa debit card.

QR Codes Gain More Mainstream Traction Through PayPal And Fiserv

Fiserv’s support of PayPal and Venmo QR codes at the point of sale points to the traction they are gaining in omnichannel commerce. More than just a touchless payments method, the flexible and dynamic nature of QR codes makes them more than just another way to pay.

Alphabet Touts Retail And Shopping Progress In Q1 Earnings

Alphabet hit $55.3 billion in revenue for Q1, and reported significant development in the retail and shoppable content sectors, as well as insight into how brands are using YouTube in its quarterly report.

Stripe To Buy TaxJar To Streamline eCom Sales Tax Compliance

Stripe is acquiring business sales tax platform TaxJar, as the FinTech develops a suite of tax tools that will help eCommerce companies and other online businesses navigate sales tax compliance and jurisdictions — of which there are 11,000 different jurisdictions in the U.S. alone.

Report: Automation Protects Business Payments From Email Compromise

Fraudsters have found a new twist on an old favorite — business email compromise (BEC) scams. In the inaugural Preventing Financial Crimes Playbook, Jeff Taylor, senior vice president of commercial fraud forensics at Regions Bank, explains how they are using automated technologies to stop BEC scammers who are hiding in plain sight.

Connected Economy 2021: Volition Capital’s Jennifer Fleiss On Flexing Startup’s Connected Commerce Muscle

Where are startups showing their connected commerce muscle? Jennifer Fleiss, managing partner at Volition Capital and co-founder of Rent The Runway, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that payments and digital options play key roles in how she and her team size up potential investments.

Vaccine Passports Uncertain As Travel Enthusiasm Remains High

While enthusiasm for travel is certainly high, it remains to be seen what exactly such travel will look like. At the moment, there are just over 75 countries that will accept American travelers amid the continuing pandemic, and many of those have heavy restrictions. So the need for some kind of vaccination passport seems pretty clear, but how, or when?