New York SBDC Research Network

By Rahul Chadha From eMarketer Mobile payments have been thought to be on the cusp of widespread adoption for several years now. But most US consumers have responded to the technology with a noncommittal shrug. Proximity mobile payments—those used at the point of sale—haven’t quite taken off the way that payment platforms hoped they would. On paper, the idea of a consumer whipping out a smartphone, tapping it against a payment terminal and going on their merry way seems like a no-brainer. The reality has been a bit different. There are a handful of solid reasons for the case against dramatic proximity mobile payment growth. But one key way that consumers can become familiar with contactless payments is via public transit. Several major metropolitan areas in the US—including New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia—have either announced plans to install contactless payments at mass transit stations, or have already rolled them out.

From eMarketing : Retailers are constantly looking to improve the shopping experience, but leveraging new technologies to do so can be costly. A spring 2017 study from Oracle and cloud-based marketing automation provider Bronto Software, which was released this past November, asked US retailers a hypothetical question: What ecommerce innovations they would focus on if money or time were not issues. A large share of respondents (44%) said they would focus on newer payment options, like one-click ordering, while a little over a third said they’d like to focus on social selling. Overall, many of the responses had a similar theme—enhancing the user experience.

From BusinessWire A survey* commissioned by Transaction Network Services (TNS) has found that 85% of adults in the US, UK and Australia believe the number of criminals trying to steal credit and debit card data is increasing. More than two thirds are concerned about the security of their payment card data and 38% feel their private credit or debit card data has been put at risk by a data breach, irrelevant of whether they subsequently were a victim of fraud. Also from BusinessWire : A recent study from Juniper Research predicts that worldwide spending on tools to detect and prevent online payment fraud will rise to $9.3 billion by 2022, an increase of 22% over the spend expected this year. The report says that the threat posed by insecure internet of things (IoT) devices will be a primary driver of anti-fraud investment.

From SmallBusinessNewz : Far too often I see business owners and entrepreneurs just getting started that simply don’t value what they do enough because they don’t have the validation that comes with landing high-paying clients. In short, in an effort to gain some traction and some exposure, they give everything away freely, or worse, get talked into doing things for people that don’t value what’s being given. Here’s the deal though – everything you do has some value and you simply must start thinking this way if you even expect to rise above a meager existence. You must start to think about how to exchange value for everything you do. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are times when you determine to do someone a favor or support a cause or mission with no thought of being paid for your time – that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that instance when someone – often able to pay – wants you to provide a service for free or for a discount. Or that event that promises

My musician/artist friends are forever complaining when governments and corporations want them to "contribute" their services for nothing. "But it'll be great exposure" is the usual response. If you do so, you will be stuck with a lot of unpaid gigs.

Those of us in the payments industry may often think “electronic is better,” but there are still those who prefer paper. Specifically: checks. 91 percent of U.S. consumers use checks, which is more than any other form of payment?1 In fact, the average U.S. consumer writes over five checks per month for retail payments, and 22 percent of total U.S. non-cash payments were made by check in 2010.2 However, checks often shift risk and hassle onto merchants who have to transport them to the bank, deal with bounced checks and worry about fraud. Luckily, new advances in check acceptance technology make it safer and easier than ever before to include checks as a customer payment choice. These technologies provide merchants with more secure and convenient options when deciding whether and how to accept checks. More from ASBDC HERE .

Credit cards are a common online payment option for small businesses, but what about other services like PayPal, Bill Me Later and Google Wallet? These now ubiquitous tools make it easier than ever for anyone – not just e-tailers – to buy and sell goods online and via mobile devices. However, as with all business tools, they have their pros and cons. Here’s what you need to know.