Industry News

COVID-19 Checklist for Reviewing Merchant Services Statements The global outbreak of coronavirus continues to evolve. With it, industries like merchant services respond to unprecedented times. Some merchant service companies seek to offset decreased volume with hidden fees. For example, card risk and fees fluctuate with more people using prepaid unemployment cards and living on credit. We also notice a global shift in acceptance environments. We all must accommodate mobile ordering, contact-less and e-commerce to survive, but at what cost? To analyze your merchant services statement, you can follow our simple checklist to uncover unnecessary costs. We also encourage you [...]

More than 40% of retail executives surveyed for the National Retail Federation’s latest payments study say they have already dropped signature requirements for payment card transactions or plan to do so before this year is out. Another 13% plan to end signature requirements in 2019.The actions come in the wake of policy changes announced by the four general-purpose card networks late in 2017 and early this year that give merchants the choice of requiring signatures for credit and debit card purchases. According to the newly released “The State of Retail Payments” biennial survey done for the Washington, D.C.-based NRF by [...]

Best practices for taking donations online and on location.We’ve all heard of crowdfunding initiatives that have gone viral, like the Relief for Fidencio the paleta man GoFundMe campaign, which raised more than $384,000 for an 89-year-old Chicagoan who sold popsicles from a push-cart. But hoping that a crowdfunding campaign makes headlines and goes viral isn’t a reliable and sustainable way to raise money. So, while crowd funding platforms like GoFundMe have revolutionized donations and digital giving, they aren’t necessarily well-suited for charities and non-profit organizations.“The average GoFundMe campaign raises just $1,500, and most are one-time asks, for things like medical expenses, funeral [...]

When TSYS conducted its first consumer payments study seven years ago, the primary focus was on debit vs. credit, according to TSYS’ Gavin Rosenberg. The company was simply looking to gather solid information as the debit market was undergoing significant changes. Fast forward to today, Rosenberg told PYMNTS shortly after the release of TSYS’ seventh U.S. Consumer Payment study, and its purview has changed significantly. Legacy data on credit and debit is still important, he said, but these days, the study grew because payments and commerce have become more complex. “There are a lot of other areas we have [...]

May 11 marks a watershed moment of sorts for financial institutions (FIs), with new requirements for customer due diligence. According to new processes mandated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the U.S. Treasury Department, additional efforts must be spent identifying legal entity customers’ beneficial ownership stakes. As defined by FinCEN, a beneficial owner can include individuals who own at least 25 percent of equity of the legal entity or who have significant responsibility when it comes to controlling the legal entity — and it all impacts new account openings. For one thing, anonymity is stripped away from [...]