Square Launches Online Checkout Button; COVID-19 Shifting Consumer Behavior: News Roundup
PaymentFacilitator’s News Roundup is a curated mix of the past week’s news and articles from around the web, including company announcements, global payments news, and other coverage and analysis of topics relevant to payment facilitators.
PF Quarterly Earnings
PayPal reported solid results for the first quarter of 2020. The company said it had added 20.2 million net new active accounts during the quarter, which was a record for the time period. Total payment volume was up 19% year over year. “As our platform sees record increases in both new customer accounts and transactions, it is clear that PayPal’s products are more important and relevant than ever before. The strength of our customer value proposition combined with the acceleration of digital payments adoption significantly accelerated in April, with increased demand and engagement,” said PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman. From PayPal.
Online Updates
Checkout without the store. Square introduced its new online checkout button to help businesses shift to accepting payments online without having to build an online store. The feature allows businesses to generate a link or button they can post in emails or text messages, or on web site or social media channels. Users can create the link for any good or service, and when customers follow the link, they are taken to a checkout page that requests their name, email and payment information. From Square.
COVID-19 Impacts
The CEO for ATM operator Link said Britain could be “virtually cashless” in two years. He said that a decline in cash usage that was expected to take five years was likely to happen in five months as a result of the pandemic, after reporting that April cash withdrawals in the U.K. were down 60% from last year. From Daily Mail.
India’s usage of digital payments is above the global average… According to a report from Capgemini Research Institute, caution surrounding COVID-19 has increased digital payment adoption even among older Indians. From Livemint.
…but the pandemic is pushing consumers toward digital channels in the U.S. 45% of respondents to an FIS survey of 1,000 American consumers said they’re using a mobile wallet of some kind, and 31% said they would use contactless or mobile wallet payments more in the future. From FIS.
…and in Canada as well. 62% of Canadian consumers said they were using cash less than they did before the pandemic. And 42% said they tried not to shop at places that didn’t accept contactless payments. From Payments Canada.
Industry News / Press Releases
Visa: Visa Token Service to Add 28 New Partners to Strengthen Digital Payment Security Globally
Shopify: Welcoming the First Dev Degree Graduates to Our Team
RealPage: RealPage AI Revenue Management Boosts Yields in Uncertain Times
RunSignup: RunSignup Releases Stage 1 of Virtual Challenge Events
BlueSnap: Snowman Software Partners with BlueSnap to Integrate Payments into DaySchool
Shopify: New, Contactless Payments Hardware Launched for Canadian Retailers Using Shopify POS
Shopify: Shopify Empowering 3,000 Small Businesses in Toronto Through ShopHERE Partnership
Shopify: Shopify and Pinterest Launch New Channel Allowing Merchants to Target Platform’s 350M+ Monthly Users
Blackbaud: Blackbaud Announces Tech Innovations to Support Social Good Customers Now and In the Aftermath of COVID-19
Fiserv: Clover Online Ordering Helps Restaurants Connect with Customers and Optimize their Business
AxiaMed: AxiaMed Announces Availability of Text&Pay Patient Payment Messaging Solution
BlytzPay: BlytzPay Announces Payments Technology Partnership with AFS Dealers and Achieves Status as a Payments Facilitator (PayFac)
Mindbody: Mindbody Introduces Integrated Live Streaming for Wellness Businesses
Federal Reserve: Federal Reserve Announces FedNow Community