Research

Card networks are at a crossroads after decades of dominance. New payment methods and heightened regulatory scrutiny are eroding the competitive advantage Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover have historically enjoyed. This combinati...

Mergers and acquisitions in payments and merchant services have slowed amid tough economic conditions and the fallout from the FIS-Worldpay deal, which just didn’t work out. Against that backdrop, M&A activity in those spaces is under increasing...

During the pandemic, specialist fintech lending caused long faces at big banks by seizing share. Five percent of Gen Zers and Gen Xers took out loans for plastic or cosmetic surgery. Boat loan applications accelerated 355%, while those seeking l...

The collapses of three cryptocurrency-friendly financial institutions demonstrate the issues that face crypto companies and their providers of financial services. Crypto-focused and related companies can still move toward opportunities by promot...

Return-to-office mandates and hybrid work scenarios have created new patterns for commuters throughout the United States. This may change payment patterns from exclusively prepaid transit products to a broader variety of prepaid and postpaid opt...

Tax-managed portfolio transition strategies offer a good cultural fit for the advisor and lend themselves to range of use cases. Transition strategies will often form the centerpiece of new client onboarding. Client cash withdrawals or a shift i...

The next generation of buyers is likely drawn from Millennials and/or Generation Z. Younger generations expect digital experiences in their buying journey that are reminiscent of business-to-consumer (B2C) interactions. The marketplace model has...

The struggles of FIS (which opted to spin off Worldpay, an acquisition it made to much fanfare four years ago), Stripe (which is seeking money at a greatly reduced valuation), and Afterpay (which abandoned a buy now, pay later market amid tough ...

For a payment vehicle that is fading away, paper checks sure are getting a lot of attention from criminals. Suspicious-activity reports to FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, with more increases ex...

New York was the first state to impose restrictions on bitcoin mining, but it won’t be the last. Oregon and Washington are lining up their own legislation, highlighting the industry’s environmental, social, and governance challenges. Still other...