When Amazon starts a new business, competitors scrap business plans and markets shudder. We examined 19 of Amazon’s divisions to help parse how the company fuels its flywheel to keep driving the virtuous cycle.

US retail mcommerce sales grew 41.4% during the pandemic year of 2020 and are set to double from this elevated base by 2025. This report looks at what’s driving this growth and how sellers should respond.

Social commerce is rising rapidly worldwide. But to what extent can the US market mirror that of China, the world leader in social commerce?

Digital account opening is on the rise after a pandemic slump.

Across brick and mortar and ecommerce, the customer experience landscape has changed dramatically—and permanently—during the pandemic.

Mobile proximity and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments have hit the mainstream, thanks to a pandemic-driven upswing in digital payments that is set to last. This trend is leading providers to diversify their offerings and compete for share of the market.

Blockchain is attracting enormous interest on the back of surging cryptocurrency valuations and increasingly high-profile payment integrations. But as a real payment currency, blockchain-based cryptocurrency still must overcome many hurdles before it can truly disrupt the space.

The major social platforms hit the ground running in 2021, making substantial investments into many of today’s top social trends: audio, influencers, and short video, to name a few.

After the coronavirus pandemic forced issuers to adapt rewards, enhance forbearance, and build out digital tools to cope with a volume hit in 2020, they’re looking to reimagine their offerings in the future to add new customers and regain primary card status.

Although the benefits of 5G for financial services firms are less flashy than in other industries, lower latency, faster speed, and improved reliability will play a big role in the financial services sector.

The pandemic accelerated payments industry digitization across the entire landscape, as merchants turned to ecommerce to keep doors open, consumers eschewed cash in favor of electronic and contactless payments, and payments technology providers rapidly developed and launched new solutions to keep up.

After a tumultuous year, the social platforms will close 2020 on a high note in terms of ad revenues and users—and with features that closely resemble each other.

The COVID-19 outbreak undermined many of our pre-pandemic US forecasts. Insight can now be gleaned by examining the difference between what we thought would happen as of February 2020 vs. what our forecasts now show.

Global retail ecommerce sales will decelerate to a 16.5% growth rate in 2020. Even as consumers transitioned en masse to ecommerce during the pandemic, the drag caused by multiple recessions internationally has reduced the overall outlook.

Mobile payments—both proximity payments and P2P transfers—continue to grow rapidly in volume. User growth is slowing, and increased spending will primarily come from existing users spending more often via mobile phones.

The global payment market will hit a major milestone in 2020: 1.06 billion people are expected to make a proximity mobile payment. But even as countries like China and Sweden take steps toward a cashless society, most of the world will still rely on cash and cards.

Growth in proximity mobile payment use in the UK remains slow but steady. Against a strong headwind of contactless card use, mobile payments have struggled to take hold, though young consumer use offers a glimmer of hope.

Canada is classified as a “high-adoption” country in our global mobile payments forecast.

Less than 13% of smartphone users in Germany will use proximity mobile payments this year—one of the lowest rates in Europe. User numbers will increase slowly, but privacy concerns and the popularity of cash and card payments will curtail adoption.