Stripe Introduces Stripe Billing; Mastercard Foregoes Customer Signature: News Roundup
Stripe introduces Stripe Billing to target the recurring business model specifically while Mastercard forgoes the customer signature on in-store purchases at US and Canadian merchant locations. And in other news, PayPal leads the rankings for mobile wallets while QR code adoption faces challenges in Europe and North America.
Here’s your weekly news roundup!
Payments leader Stripe has introduced Stripe Billing. Being branded as an evolution of Stripe Subscriptions, Stripe Billing targets the recurring business model specifically.
According to the company’s blog, feedback from their customers showed they needed more than just basic subscription management. Stripe Billing addresses this need specifically by enabling businesses to design billing around the customer experience.
Additional features include invoice support for US-based ACH and wire transfers and a new feature called smart retry logic that uses algorithms to determine the best way to retry failed payments.
Mastercard foregoes customer signature for US and Canada. Effective April 13, merchants conducting business in the US and Canada will no longer be required to capture a signature for in-store credit and debit purchases.
The timeline to implement the change will be left to merchant discretion and the goal is speedier checkout lines and greater control over the customer experience, according to the press release.
“In our digital, fast-paced marketplace, consumers appreciate any opportunity to save time. This is why Mastercard led the charge to officially ‘retire’ cardholder signatures from store receipts,” said Executive Vice President, U.S. Market Development at Mastercard, Linda Kirkpatrick via the same release. “Merchants recognize that cardholder signatures have limited use and are embracing this change to create efficiency for their customers.”
Mastercard first announced its decision to eliminate signatures in October.
Uber expands its transport options by acquiring JUMP Bikes. Currently being tested in San Francisco, the new partnership will enable the electric, dockless bike-sharing service to operate from the Uber platform, according to the company’s press release.
This is a win for both companies in that Uber gains another mode of transport while JUMP gains access to Uber’s expansive customer database.
The ultimate goal, according to the same post, is to offer an in-app experience that enables multiple transport choices.
Also announced by Uber this month the introduction of the Uber Visa Debit Card via a partnership with GoBank. The card targets drivers and delivery partners specifically with rewards on popular spending items such as gas and groceries.
PayPal drives mobile wallet rankings while QR code adoption faces challenges. According to the most recent data provided by Juniper Research, PayPal is the leading global mobile wallets provider, followed by Alipay and Weixin Pay/WeChat Pay.
The Juniper data projected PayPal as having the greatest opportunities to develop a converged global wallet, based largely on their offering of contactless payments in-store at US merchant locations. PayPal was closely followed by China’s Alipay.
The same report showed that security issues may be likely to restrict QR code adoption in Europe and North America. According to the research, both consumers and merchants in these areas tend to favor ‘closed loop’ wallets (those issued by large brands such as Starbucks, Walmart, etc). This is due largely to the greater security offered by NFC-based wallets, which include tokenized credentials and, increasingly, biometric authentication.