Faster payments

While there has been a general trend of paying people faster for work already performed, starting with gig workers, COVID-19 has created (or exposed) many issues that are fueling the shift toward on-demand pay, especially for hourly workers.

Faster payments haven't always lived up to the hype and promise because of development and adoption stagnation in the U.S., but the idea of speedier transactions is becoming more popular.

TransferGo will use Mastercard's push payment service to support near real-time money transfers for European customers.

High profile companies like Facebook, Square and PayPal have brought attention to using cryptocurrency for payments — but speed is more important than buzz in getting stores to view crypto as tender, according to a group of developers who are building connections to merchants.

With Brazil's Central Bank launching the PIX instant payments network Monday, Uber and Ebanx quickly announced they are expanding their partnership to enable Brazilians to make instant payments through PIX for Uber rides and Uber Eats orders.

Our collective work on the real-time payments front is not for naught. That is because the consumer and business needs are evolving, says Bottomline's Jessica Cheney.

Real-time payments carry a trove of valuable data for supply chains, and a way for card networks to grow beyond card-dependent revenue. The collaboration between Payments Canada and Mastercard’s Vocalink will go a long way toward both ends.

Brazil aims to move beyond the era of cash payments on Monday, when the Banco Central do Brasil launches the Brazil Instant Payment System.

Two smaller banks with strikingly different roots — a startup financial institution in Irvine, Calif., and a century-old Missouri-based bank — are seeing similar trends emerge around demand for real-time payments.

Several large mobile point of sale projects are hitting the market at once to reach financially troubled retailers, with JPMorgan Chase making use of a three-year-old acquisition to push back against the technology firms that have been gobbling up small-business clients.