The payfac model has catapulted into the mainstream, thanks to payments disruptors like PayPal, Square, and Stripe. The growth in the number of payfacs, and in the payment volume passing through them, is reshaping key relationships within the payments ecosystem. But the model bears some drawbacks for the diverse swath of companies adopting it, as well as for the merchants that work with them.

The small-business-centric point-of-sale solution can push PayPal further into in-store payments and help it court more small sellers—though it’ll face competition from players like Square and Stripe.

Payments service providers are building an array of financial services to compete with financial institutions (FIs). Lending, bank account products, issuing, and other services that have been FIs’ bread and butter are being challenged in a bid to add more revenue opportunities and engender greater loyalty. These payment disruptors, such as Square, Stripe, and Shopify, are using their existing relationships with small businesses to attract clients away from FIs and persuading them to use their own financial offerings.

The news: After a yearlong beta, China-based card network UnionPay and Stripe deepened their partnership so Stripe sellers can accept payments from UnionPay cardholders, including in Chinese currency. They can also automate returns and disputes and manage these payments through their existing Stripe dashboard.

Wix operates as a payfac in the US and Europe via Wix Payments, in partnership with Adyen and Stripe. Its processing and gateway offerings have found success in competing against third parties: Wix Payments accounted for more than 30% of all of Wix’s sales transactions in Q3 2020, president Nir Zohar said on the company’s earnings call.

This tactic is favored by firms like Mastercard, Stripe, and Visa, which have partnered with numerous BNPL providers in recent years so that their merchants can offer a variety of solutions. For Stripe, this process can be as simple as one of its existing merchants electing to use one of the available providers’ solutions and going through a 10-minute integration process.

And like Splitit’s recent move, providers also inked new deals to bring their solutions to more merchants and customers: Affirm partnered with Shopify to power Shop Pay installments, and Afterpay formed a tie-up with Stripe. The big picture: Global expansion lets providers reach new customers who may have a need or an appetite for BNPL solutions.

Payments startups have done especially well, with Stripe and Checkout.com being the highest-valued unicorns of any sector in the US and UK, respectively, while BNPL Klarna is, in fact, the highest-valued private company in all of Europe, per CB Insights Complete List of Unicorn Companies. Future unicorns-to-be extend beyond payments to include open banking providers and neobanks. For example:.

Payments giant Stripe, meanwhile, has partnered with Goldman Sachs and Citi to offer an API that allows Stripe’s clients to offer bank accounts—as well as debit cards and cash management features—to their own customers.

Walmart’s strong retail media business may help it compete with Amazon: Soaring revenues and more advertisers than ever bode well for the big-box retailer’s future.

The neobank hit this lofty level on the back of bagging $750 million in new funding. Insider Intelligence examines the bullish and the bearish cases for whether it’s worth it.

The BNPL provider is pursuing aggressive growth with new partnerships with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Yoox Net-a-Porter, but credit card competition looms as legacy players try to reclaim customers.

On today's episode, we discuss what Facebook has become and is trying to be, what to make of social media platforms looking more and more alike, and which of these "copycat" moves might strike gold. We then talk about the significance of Nextdoor going public, how India's social media content liability laws could impact Twitter (and others), and some changes as to what advertisers can, and can't, do on social media. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Jasmine Enberg.

To this end, it has already entered into comarketing partnerships with the likes of American Express, Stripe, and Brex. But the Bezos investment could indicate future collaboration opportunities with Amazon, enabling Pilot to reach the etail giant’s millions of SMB clients.

Substack collects 10% of subscription revenues from its users, and its payment provider, Stripe, takes another 2.9% plus a 30-cent transaction fee. As of January 2021, Substack said it had more than 250,000 paying subscribers, and its top 10 publishers brought in more than $7 million in annual revenues. Brand Sponsorships in the New Creator Ecosystem.

Even as the U.S. starts to open up again, consumers are still shopping online, and Shopify, a leading commerce platform that lets merchants manage their online retail operations in-house, is well positioned to capture the growing online market as it continues to strike new partnerships.

This includes firms that facilitate digital payments for businesses, like Stripe, and those that handle digital payments for consumers, such as PayPal. These firms should work with networks or PSPs to enable APIs and other integration tools so that payments can be settled quickly, helping these players avoid losing out to competitors that offer consumers more appealing payment options.

Gateways like Adyen and Stripe act as the portal through which ecommerce merchants connect to acquirers and serve a similar function as terminals do for payments made in-store. Additionally, gateways tend to offer merchants access to services like analytics and reporting.

This trend is certain to continue and increase by as much as 21% in 2021, according to one estimate by payments provider Stripe. A multilayered fraud prevention approach, which includes steps such as email address verification, confirming billing and shipping addresses, and limiting buyer purchase velocity, helps guard against the increase in fraud attempts.

And moving beyond retail could preview a push into identity verification more broadly—something that payments processor Stripe has pursued recently as well. 5-Year Outlook. Amazon One’s launch conditions are fairly favorable. Contactless payments surged when the pandemic made customers more health-conscious and touch-averse.