Welcome to our weekly Friday fintech, payments, and e-commerce news and business intelligence roundup. It may not feel “normal” yet where you live, so we’ll do our best to give you a taste of normal news you can use. Even your humble editor is pining for the days when Corona meant a beer you would share with friends around the barbecue as opposed to something that keeps you, your family, and friends apart. But that’s a conversation for another day. Here’s what happened this week in the payments industry.
PayPal soars, Square gains with focus on latest trends
Shares of PayPal Holdings Inc rallied as much as 13%, reaching a record high in early trading on Thursday, with analysts zeroing in on the payments company’s strong April trends and growth in electronic transactions across the board. Square Inc rose as much as 8.6% to the highest since early March, as it benefited from some of that, too. But worries about credit and its small-and-medium-sized business market factored in as well. Read more…
Square launches Online Checkout to take on PayPal
Square is introducing a new payment tool designed for small businesses looking to rapidly transition to e-commerce. With billions of people around the world forced to adhere to lockdown and social distancing measures driven by the COVID-19 crisis, this has led to a sizable uptick in people buying things online. Whether this trend represents a permanent shift from the status quo or a temporary blip due to shelter-in-place policies is up for debate. But with the entire retail industry facing significant headwinds for the foreseeable future, if ever there was a time to embrace e-commerce, it would be now. Read more…
QuadPay builds new installment model with Stripe Issuing
QuadPay, the payment installment platform, is partnering with Stripe to power advanced buy-now-pay-later experiences that boost conversion and let consumers start shopping instantly both online and in-store. Built on Stripe’s issuing infrastructure, QuadPay enables consumers to start shopping in installments anywhere Visa is accepted and powers buy-now-pay-later experiences that boost sales by more than 20% on average. Read more…
PPRO launches leading Japanese payment methods propels APAC expansion
PPRO, the world’s leading local payments platform-as-a-service, has entered the Japanese e-commerce market. Two popular Japanese payment methods – Konbini and Pay-easy – join over 150 local payment methods on PPRO’s platform, a portfolio that already includes APAC heavyweights like Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay, and GrabPay. The Japanese e-commerce market – boasting a healthy growth rate of 9% pre-COVID-19 – is showing potential for retailers and other merchants that will likely increase during and after the pandemic. Read more…
Klarna partners with Sephora for a more flexible shopping experience
Klarna, a leading global payments and shopping provider, today announced that it has partnered with Sephora, the leading prestige beauty retailer, in the US. Customers shopping for the latest beauty products on Sephora’s website are now able to take advantage of Klarna’s installment option, which allows them to pay in four equal payments with no interest, and provides the security, flexibility, and financial control they seek. Read more…
SME lender Judo Bank just became a unicorn with another massive AUD$230 million raise
Judo Bank’s existing backers have stumped up $230 million (USD$151.1 million) in a third-round capital raise that raises the neobank’s post-money valuation to more than AUD$1 billion ($650 million). The challenger bank targets lending to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and has now raised more than $770 million ($502.6 million) in capital since its launch in March 2018, including a record $400 million ($261.1 million) second-round equity raise in July last year. Judo Bank’s existing investors include Bain Capital Credit, Myer Family Investments, The Abu Dhabi Capital Group, Ironbridge, SPF Investment Management, Optrust, and Tikehau Capital. Read more…
Continental Bank selects TCS BaNCS cloud services for digital customer services
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization, announced that Continental Bank in the US has selected TCS BaNCS™ Cloud for Banking to digitally transform its business. Continental Bank is a privately owned commercial bank, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah specializing in commercial equipment financing for small and medium businesses, real estate financing as well as a growing suite of deposit products. Read more…
Etsy sales grow 100% in April
The online marketplace sold $133 million worth of fabric face masks during April. April marks the highest sales month since Etsy went public in 2015 and includes two of its largest sales days of all time. Gross merchandise sales (GMS), or the total value of goods sold on Etsy.com, grew 100% year over year to $780 million in April, executives said on a call discussing first-quarter earnings results with investors. Of that, masks were 17% of Etsy’s sales for the month. Read more…
What are the top online marketplaces?
The top online marketplaces in the world sold $2.03 trillion in 2019. Sales on marketplace sites, like those operated by Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, and others, accounted for 58% of global web sales in 2019, according to Digital Commerce 360’s analysis. The growth of marketplace e-commerce sales is a reason many large retailers, including Target Corp, are launching their own marketplaces. Here are the key findings of a new in-depth analysis of the just-released Digital Commerce 360 Top 100 Online Marketplaces ranking. Read more…
JD Power reports customers happier with big banks compared to digital-only
When it comes to digital banking, even with the coronavirus crisis, the traditional banks seem to have customer satisfaction sewn up. Seem ironic? New research from JD Power not only shows the shift to digital banking and payment solutions is accelerating faster than anticipated due to coronavirus, but the big banks are also getting higher customer satisfaction ratings than digital-only financial providers. That presents a problem and a challenge for big financial institutions as the COVID-19 pandemic places constraints on in-person retail banking and forces customers to increase reliance on digital service channels. Read more…
The payments sector has the tools to respond to the new challenge
Opening a bank account – fundamental for most enterprises – can feel like taking an exam. And access to short-term funding, whether to fill a cash flow gap or to underpin growth plans, can involve multiple hurdles often just too steep to get over. Payments businesses already supporting the online merchant space can deliver a genuine added value by providing banking services including access to funding to their service proposition. And in the current climate that support is going to be more valued than ever – indeed for the Payments businesses that demonstrate a real understanding of SME needs there could be a significant long-term gain. Read more…
Microsoft identity VP shares how and why to ditch passwords
Cybercriminals don’t need advanced techniques when they can bet on human behavior. In its “2019 State of Password and Authentication Security Behaviors Report,” the Ponemon Institute found 51% of 1,761 IT and IT security pros reused an average of five total passwords across both business and personal accounts. Nearly 70% admitted to sharing their passwords with colleagues. It’s a dangerous habit. After all, the complexity of a password doesn’t matter if it falls into the wrong hands, says Joy Chick, corporate vice president of identity at Microsoft. Read more…
Mother’s Day, beauty, nesting, & other e-commerce spending insights
Global fraud prevention company Forter is tracking weekly online spending and the results during the COVID-19 crisis have proved fascinating. Based on Forter data tracking in the past several weeks and looking ahead to Mother’s Day, e-commerce sales look encouraging in several sectors including jewelry and electronics. 70% of consumers said celebrating Mother’s Day this year is important to them and they plan to spend an average of $205 on cards, meals, and other gifts for mom this year. Read more…
Enjoy your weekend, continue to keep your social distance, and please stay safe and healthy as always.
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