The U.S. House of Representatives passed a landmark bill aimed at easing restrictions placed on the cannabis industry. The SAFE ACT (Secure and Fair Enforcement) banking act provides safe harbor for financial institutions to work with cannabis operators. If passed by the Senate and approved...
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The cross-currents around the pandemic and the impending recovery continue to swirl. As of April 17, 85 million Americans had been vaccinated. Yet, new strains of the virus and anti-vaxx protests have put some states smack in the middle of the pandemic including North and...
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The April 17 transition deadline for EMV at outdoor fuel pumps is nearly upon us. Failure to comply means operators, instead of the credit card companies, will assume 100% liability for chargebacks associated with fraudulent transactions at the pump. Still, industry technology trade organization Conexxus reports...
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More than a year after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, igniting fears that the virus could be spread by handling currency, a group of three financial associations and a Chicago-based cash-in-transit and money-protection service sent a letter Monday to members of Congress, governors, and state legislators around...
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The traction gained by the digital-first economy has seen its share of eye-popping data points. Case in point: PYMNTS' most recent Global Shopping Index found a 60 percent increase in the share of purchases made with digital devices since March 2020. Now, Mastercard’s data on...
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A new UBS report says as many as 80,000 U.S. retail stores, or about 9 percent of the country's total, could close by 2026, CNBC reports. The pace of store closures is down from its 2019 peak, but the report says the country might still have...
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It’s still too early to tell how many small businesses will survive the events of 2020 and 2021. A recent study of small firms by McKinsey and Company estimated that as many as 1.5 million of the 31 million small businesses could fail as a...
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Retailers faced an existential threat in 2020 as stay-at-home orders in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic essentially shut down face-to-face retail through much of the year. Retailers responded by beefing up their e-commerce offerings, but many were unfamiliar with the threats posed to online...
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The Payments Leadership Council, a new trade group created this month by some of the top companies in the payments industry, jumped up last week to praise congressional passage of a bill extending the Paycheck Protection Program that provides loans to businesses hurt by the...
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Matt Levin's cautious optimism is typical for a baseball exec at the end of March. Spring training is almost over, and his Worcester Red Sox are preparing to launch a new mobile-friendly low-touch ballpark that appears made for the times. There's more than baseball going on....
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