In this week’s news, the App Store ecosystem facilitated $643 billion in billings and sales last year. Also, new insights have emerged about Main Street small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and behavioral analytics. The Weekender is here to catch you up.
News
Apple’s App Store Facilitated $643 Billion In Commerce In 2020
The App Store ecosystem allowed for $643 billion in billings and sales in 2020, signifying a 24 percent year-over-year rise.
PayPal Leads Mobile Wallet Race With Half Of Online Transactions
At its apex this spring, PayPal’s mobile wallet has fueled 28 percent of in-store mobile transactions. In addition, PayPal’s mobile wallet peaked just short of a complete half of online transactions at 48 percent.
Kushki Lands $86 Million To Fix LatAm’s Fragmented Payments Infrastructure
Kushki said it has notched $86 million in a Series B round from backers such as the SoftBank Latin America Fund.
Visa Expands Investment In LoginID — And Authenticated Payments’ Future
Visa, by the way of a newly announced investment in LoginID, is backing the marriage between payments and authentication – conducted seamlessly and without the password.
Overdrafts, Merchant Fees And Crypto: Why You Can’t Have It Both Ways
“We can’t have it both ways — the collective ‘we’ consisting of regulators, policymakers, innovators, payments players, merchants and consumers — even though the narrative that we can have it both ways feeds the media beast,” as PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster writes. “And by both ways, I mean selectively targeting some for providing and monetizing services that consumers want and use, without considering the downstream impact to those consumers if those services are suddenly taken away, regulated out of existence or made too costly for service providers to support.”
Trackers and Reports
NEW DATA: Nearly Half Of Main Street SMBs Will Boost Business Investments As Vaccines Roll Out
Half of all Main Street SMBs intend to invest in different areas like new staffers, more equipment and advertising.
OppFi CEO Says Behavioral Analytics Unearth Credit Gems Other Methods Miss
Seeking loans can be complex for people that have low credit scores or incomes, since traditional loan offerings concentrate nearly exclusively on credit scores. However, behavioral analytics have the potential to handle the applications from these consumers safely and expediently without leaving out those who are otherwise financially sound.
NEW DATA: What UK And US Businesses Want From Cross-Border Payments Innovations
Sixty-two percent of British companies say they think cross-border B2B innovation can lessen the cost of making and receiving cross-border payments, as do 54 percent of American companies.
Fun, Cool And Otherwise Interesting
SoFi IPO Underscores The Rise Of The Purpose-Built Bank
Digital banks that cater to – or concentrate on – specific demographics or services are gaining currency not only on the Street, but on Main Street as well.
Crypto’s Troubling Rise And Role In Growing Ransomware Attacks
Reports of nefarious actors looking to interrupt supply chains and transportation centers are increasing, along with demand for payment in bitcoin.
The Optimistic State Of Main Street On The Road To Recovery
Sixty percent of Main Street SMBs told PYMNTS that the vaccination will be “extremely” or “very” successful in bolstering growth in 2021.
All Day Kitchens: Recovering Restaurants Can ‘Capture The Learnings’ Of Digital Shift
“When the pandemic hit, we saw this reaction from the industry as a whole, which is, ‘Okay, what can we do, and how do we transition to the digital and last-mile fulfillment world very quickly?’” All Day Kitchens CEO Ken Chong told PYMNTS in a recent interview. “Now, all of these restaurant brands are thinking, ‘How do we reopen in a sustainable, long-term way and capture all of the learnings from last year?’”
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