Increasing digitization among the 32 million US small businesses is changing the competitive landscape and forcing banks, acquirers, and fintechs to invest in next-generation features. These features range from payments and value-added services to outreach.

Despite only holding about $9.1B in assets, the US bank has attracted big-name fintech clients and another funding round.

The payments firm partnered with FTX and launched a new API service aimed at attracting crypto firms.

Payments Ecosystem: This year will reveal how providers must adapt to lasting pandemic-driven digitization across payments channels, ranging from in-store retail to B2B ecommerce.

Payments Ecosystem: Diminishing analog payment use—as well as the battle for share between entrenched electronic payment methods and emerging challengers—will intensify the battle for customer spending this year.

Payments Ecosystem: POS hardware, POS software, and gateway providers are working to become one-stop shops for merchants. Offering simple, robust access to front- and back-end solutions across industries lets them better serve merchants demanding integrated solutions.

Mobile payments are near universal across use cases in China, thanks to high mobile penetration and the rise of a wallet duopoly that’s made them accessible, affordable, and convenient.

Letting sellers tap into UnionPay’s massive base—and Chinese interest in cross-border ecommerce—could boost volume and attract sellers who might want to switch providers.

Digital commerce platforms help merchants of all sizes sell online, making them an increasingly big factor in ecommerce payments. This creates new opportunities for processors, gateways, and other payments stakeholders to reach merchants—but also complicates their relationship.

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.

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.

Service providers are using their existing relationships with small businesses to move into financial services, taking on financial institutions by offering solutions like lending and bank accounts that are powered by partnerships, digital banking developments, and even in-house banks.

Buy now, pay later solutions are quickly gaining adoption as consumers look for new financing options and merchants aim to drive sales. But the industry is still unsettled as a number of firms are battling to lead the space, while card networks and issuers are looking to get involved too.