Whats Happening Now news and trends

Federal Reserve Expands Main Street Lending Program For SMBs

June 08, 2020
TRENDING: Turning Office Fridges Into Healthy Vending Machines
Vending Machines // June 19, 2018

Smart vending machines and self-service kiosks are becoming a sure sign of restaurant innovation – and, if recent developments are any indication, the space is undergoing a veritable unattended retail revolution. Industry leaders in the fast food space continue to expand their use of unattended...

TRENDING: B2B Payments APIs’ Retail Banking Inspiration
API // June 12, 2018

Banks are embracing the age of APIs seemingly more every day, with new artificial intelligence and machine learning tools promising to offer the data-driven insights that their customers crave. New research found that a growing percentage of FIs expect APIs to increase revenue in the...

NARS Cosmetics Puts Its Best Face Forward With AI, Data
Omnicommerce // May 30, 2018

When it comes to standing out in the $445 billion beauty industry, it all comes down to personalization, says Benjamin Lord, executive director of global eCommerce and omnichannel sales at NARS Cosmetics. In the latest Omni Developer Report, Lord gives PYMNTS an inside look at...

NEW DATA: The Commerce Channel 58 Percent of Consumers Now Use – And Like
Merchant Innovation // May 22, 2018

The age of contextual commerce has arrived – even if many mainstream customers aren’t aware of it. While they may not call it “engaging in contextual commerce,” nearly 60 percent of consumers have done just that – and most of those shoppers say they enjoyed...

Interviews & Exclusives
The Vitamin Shoppe Turns To eCommerce, Subscriptions To Supplement Its Brick-And-Mortar Business

May 21, 2018
From fitness freaks to makeup mavens, Health and Beauty shoppers are going mobile. The latest Omni Usage Index reports 44 percent of these consumers use retailer mobile apps  a far higher percentage than other retail verticals can boast. But with consumers giving retailers an average satisfaction score of just 37.9 out of 100, many merchants are seemingly missing the mark. PYMNTS examines 900-plus data points to gauge where merchants are excelling and where they’re falling behind, inside the Index.

Risky Business: When FIs Make AI A “Black Box”

April 18, 2018
From giving consumers in the developing world access to mobile and online banking capabilities to pushing banking tech forward in hopes of creating a new world of intelligent applications, digital...

Salesforce GM: Channeling APIs For Personalized Financial Services

April 11, 2018
Financial services players, both big and small, are embracing APIs in a major way — as they should. From solutions designed to increase the use of new technologies like the...

CUs Turn To Data To Keep Up With The Joneses

February 15, 2018
In the fight to compete against banks and other financial institutions (FIs), credit unions (CUs) and service providers are turning to new technology and data-driven solutions to better support their...

Quick Reads
Federal Reserve Expands Main Street Lending Program For SMBs

June 08, 2020
Answering the call to provide more help for small- and medium- sized businesses (SMBs), the Federal Reserve Board has made adjustments to its Main Street Lending Program. The Fed announced on Monday (June 8) that it has agreed to lower the minimum loan, raise the maximum limit, adjust the principal repayment schedule to begin after […]

VocaLink Proposes New Payments System To Ease SME Cash Flow

June 15, 2016
Industry analysts agree that late B2B payments threaten the survival of small and medium-size enterprises. Often operating within thin margins, sometimes without easy access to working capital financing, SMEs can...

SAP’s SMB eComm Play Includes Google, PayPal

May 17, 2016
The U.S. is a critical market for SAP. But it wasn’t until this week that SAP Anywhere, the firm’s eCommerce-as-a-Service solution, entered the U.S. market, despite having already launched in...

What Made Visa Europe Worth $23 Billion?

November 03, 2015
On Wall Street, a quarter may linger in the minds of investors for a little while, but a merger brings with it much longer rumination. As in: What to make...