Despite changes announced by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) Wednesday (Sept. 4), the industry is pushing for further amendments to these rules, Bloomberg reported Friday (Sept. 6).

The Payments Association wrote to City Minister Tulip Siddiq on Friday, urging for the maximum reimbursement for victims of authorized push payment (APP) fraud to be reduced to 30,000 British pounds (about $39,000), according to the report. The association said this amount would still cover 95% of fraud cases.

The request came after the PSR announced its plan to lower the cap on reimbursements to 85,000 pounds (about $111,600) from 415,000 pounds (about $545,000), following lobbying from the payments industry and feedback from government officials, the report said. The regulator said the new cap would cover over 99% of claims by volume.

APP fraud involves victims being tricked into sending money to criminals. Last year alone, this type of fraud led to 460 million pounds (about $604 million) in losses, the report said, citing research by trade group UK Finance.

The industry is also calling for Big Tech companies to share the liability of fraud losses, per the report. Many banks argue that more than 60% of reported scams in the U.K. originate from sites like Instagram. They say social media and tech companies should have the same financial incentives to control fraud as traditional financial institutions.

Under current rules, Big Tech firms like Instagram parent Meta Platforms are outside the PSR’s jurisdiction, according to the report.

However, the Labour Party, which recently took over the U.K. government, has plans to include Big Tech in the battle against APP fraud, the report said. In a document seen by Bloomberg News, Labour called for Big Tech companies to tackle fraud and reimburse victims.

The implementation of the new fraud-reimbursement rules has proven challenging for many financial firms, the report said. Less than 500 firms have been onboarded onto the Pay.UK system, which is responsible for setting up the communication infrastructure for reimbursements. This means that approximately two-thirds of payments firms are not yet part of the system. However, the firms that have joined represent 95% of fraud volume.

To gather additional responses from banks and payments firms, the PSR has initiated a two-week consultation that will run until Sept. 18, per the report. The regulator plans to announce its final plan by the end of September.

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In an interview with PYMNTS, Nick Daniel, Etsy’s chief product officer, explains the company’s recent efforts are designed to incorporate listing quality into their visibility on the platform.

“Since earlier this year, we’ve been working on new ways to incorporate the quality of a listing into where it shows up on Etsy — in places like search and recommendations,” Daniel said, noting factors such as listing details, photo quality and customer service records.

Ramping Up the Consumer Experience

Daniel emphasized Etsy’s commitment to enhancing the browsing experience

“We are optimizing our search results to showcase a broader range of items from more sellers,” he said. “We also want to make it easier and more fun to explore the incredible breadth and depth our marketplace has to offer. This is particularly helpful when customers don’t know exactly what they’re looking for and want to browse a wider set of options in various styles.”

This diversification strategy has opened new opportunities for sellers, as Daniel noted, “serving up a broader array of listings has led to approximately 70% of shops on Etsy having more visibility in search.”

According to Daniel, the refinement of search algorithms involves a range of factors to determine where listings appear.

“When shoppers are searching on Etsy, it’s important that they can easily find high-quality listings from shops that have a track record of good customer service,” he explained. “Making these listings easier to find helps build trust with shoppers so they come back to shop on Etsy again and again.”

Positive trends have emerged since the implementation of these updates.

“We’ve seen an increase in the number of 4- and 5-star reviews sitewide, while also seeing a decline in the rate at which buyers request refunds, both of which indicate shoppers are happier with their experiences on Etsy,” Daniel said.

The revamped search features come at a time when Etsy is looking to recoup the number of consumers shopping on the platform — its second-quarter earnings showed a dip in sales as retail spending continues to navigate the uncertain economy.

Consumers, overall, are being more selective about purchases, and PYMNTS Intelligence data shows they often trade down to less expensive options, especially those consumers who live paycheck to paycheck.

Enhancing the search experience for consumers and providing tools to sellers to better craft listings may help Etsy reach those shoppers.

New Seller Tools

Daniel said the introduction of the Etsy Search Visibility Page was a key development designed to enhance transparency for sellers.

“We’re excited to announce the new Etsy Search Visibility Page in Shop Manager, giving our sellers more insights and recommendations into how they appear in search than ever before,” he said. “We’ve heard from sellers consistently over the years that they want more transparency into what goes into Etsy search to help optimize listings and make more sales.”

The Search Visibility Page was developed in response to repeated seller requests for greater clarity on search algorithms. The page offers actionable tips to help sellers improve their search rankings, focusing on elements such as listing image quality, return policies, message response times and shipping prices.

The page is intended to empower sellers with the tools needed to enhance their listings and, by extension, their search visibility.

“As sellers make changes to their listings, they’ll have the ability to track improvements in real time,” Daniel said. This feature aims to facilitate a more proactive approach to optimizing listings and improving the overall shopping experience on Etsy.

The Search Visibility Page provides detailed insights into various aspects of seller performance. For example, Etsy will notify sellers monthly if they meet customer service standards and how this affects their search visibility.

“Sellers can also keep track of daily progress on the customer service stats page,” Daniel said. “Consistently going above and beyond for customers could also help our sellers be recategorized as a Star Seller, which serves as a further trust signal to buyers and can drive increased conversion. We want to make sure high-quality listings with clear information stand out so that buyers feel confident in making a purchase.”

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The Walmart Style Tour, which will be held at 40 events across the United States in September and October, offers styling tips, color analysis and giveaways, the retailer said in a Friday (Sept. 6) press release.

The first event on the tour started Friday at the Taste of Chicago, according to the release.

“We’re constantly looking for new ways to meet our customers where they are and add value to their lives,” Kim Tunick, group director, brand experiences and partnerships at Walmart, said in the release. “The Walmart Style Tour is the first time we are creating this kind of experience for fashion and can’t wait to bring it to communities across the country at events we know our customers are already planning to attend.”

At each stop on the tour, the retailer will display a selection of Walmart Finds shoppable by QR code, deliver styling tips from experts, provide a free color analysis, and offer personalized giveaways like lipsticks, totesand candles, according to the release.

“The Walmart Style Tour is designed to shorten the distance between inspiration and commerce, making it easier than ever to discover and shop fall fashion on Walmart.com, the Walmart app and Walmart stores,” the retailer said in the release.

Walmart has launched websites that feature the schedule of the Walmart Style Tour and the products that will be featured at the events.

Online fashion rental service Rent the Runway (RTR) is also focusing on in-person events. RTR executives said Thursday (Sept. 5) during the company’s quarterly earnings call that a significant part of RTR’s strategy involves reenergizing its in-person presence, including a Southeast roadshow and mobile tour this fall.

“In real-life events, we’ve seen hundreds of women standing around the block to get into events,” RTR CEO Jennifer Hyman said during the call. “Reigniting everything around marketing will not only drive higher org traffic, but higher customer engagement.”

Media companies, too, are launching in-person experiences to cater to consumers who are looking to attend events, PYMNTS reported in June.

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Consumers in the Seattle area can now order same-day grocery delivery from local merchant Metropolitan Market on Amazon’s marketplace, Chain Store Age reported. Additionally, the online marketplace is also expanding its existing grocery delivery partnership with Weis Markets to six additional locations.

“By teaming up with well-loved grocers like Metropolitan Market, we’re offering our customers in the greater Seattle area even more selection, value and convenience as they shop for their favorite foods online,” said Christian Seitel, Amazon’s head of U.S. grocery partnerships, per the report. “We look forward to expanding our two-hour delivery window offering to more Metropolitan Market and Weis Markets locations in the future.”

The eCommerce company’s partnership with Weis Markets kicked off last November in addition to similar deals with other grocery merchants. Plus, Amazon had already been offering third-party same-day grocery delivery options in the United Kingdom before that.

The move comes as Amazon looks to grow its presence in grocery — the one retail category in which it trails behind competitor Walmart by a wide margin. The most recent edition of PYMNTS Intelligence’s Whole Paycheck Report, “Walmart Holds Grocery Lead Over Amazon Despite Overall Share Declines,” estimated the two companies’ market shares in various retail categories using years of their earnings reports in conjunction with national data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis. The results revealed that as of the second quarter, Walmart captured a share of consumer grocery spending seven times the size of Amazon’s, at 20% and 2.7%, respectively.

As Amazon ramps up its efforts to close the gap with Walmart in the grocery sector, its expanded third-party delivery partnerships with popular local merchants such as Metropolitan Market and Weis Markets mark a step toward growing its presence in the category. Capitalizing on these grocers’ existing followings, the marketplace could gain more market share.

Walmart, too, is focused on growing its grocery business. The report revealed that the retail giant’s share has been inching upward in recent years. Now, the company is relying on its low grocery prices, difficult for rivals to compete with, to draw consumers into its stores and get them to spend on food. The retailer shared on its most recent earnings call how it is using price reductions to drive engagement.

“Walmart U.S. food prices were slightly inflated as we exit Q2, but down 30 basis points versus Q1,” CEO Doug McMillon said. “In Walmart U.S., we have more than 7,200 rollbacks across categories. Customers from all income levels are looking for value, and we have it.”

These rollbacks come as PYMNTS Intelligence research found that consumers across generations are highly price-motivated when choosing where to shop. A survey of more than 3,600 United States consumers for the Generation Zillennial report revealed that Generation Z individuals and millennials are roughly twice as likely to choose retail merchants based on price than brand loyalty. Plus, Generation X consumers and baby boomers and seniors are roughly three times as likely to do so.

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September stands out as the month that will herald the first rate cut by the Federal Reserve after years of hiking interest rates.  At least, that’s what the conventional wisdom says.

For the FinTech IPO Index, specifically for the platforms within that group, lower interest rates should conceivably spur demand for loans and various forms of credit.  Conversely, lower interest rates levied on those loans would impact various earnings metrics. 

Right now, and as seen in the chart below, only a handful of our names have posted positive returns since their debuts as publicly traded entities.

The impacts of a rate cut — or perhaps even rate cuts, plural — might not be felt for some time, and earnings season won’t be here for another three months.  But the platforms, with a spate of partnerships, some corporate finance announcements, and some headlines in the buy now, pay later realm, held sway.

Shares of Katapult sank 17.7% through the past five sessions, followed by Upstart, which lost 15%.  In a release late last week,  Fibre Federal Credit Union, a Washington-based credit union with over 118,000 members and over $1.6 billion in assets, announced a new partnership with Upstart to provide personal loans to new and existing members. Fibre started on the Upstart Referral Network in December 2022.   In the current relationship, qualified personal loan applicants on Upstart.com who meet Fibre Federal’s credit policies will receive tailored offers as they move into  Fibre Federal-branded experience to complete the online member application and closing process.

Oportun, which lost 7%, announced the offering of $223.25 million of fixed-rate asset-backed notes secured by a pool of unsecured and secured installment loans.

Sezzle Taps WeBank

The BNPL names helped offset some of the losses that were noted above.  Sezzle, as we reported,  plans to have WebBank serve as its exclusive bank to originate and finance products offered through the Sezzle platform, including its Pay-in-2 and Pay-in-4 products.

The two companies entered into a strategic partnership program by executing a loan and receivables sale agreement and marketing and servicing agreement last week.   Subject to completion of confirmatory testing and procedures, the program is expected to launch in September, according to SEC filings.

Under the agreement, WebBank will also serve as the exclusive issuer of all Sezzle subscription products and of Sezzle card products, per the filing.

Affirm shares stood out here, having helped lead the FinTech IPO Index to higher last week. Earnings late last week noted that in the words of CEO Max Levchin, interest rate cuts might boost demand for BNPL. Shares soared 25%. “The most exciting thing about reductions at that fund rate is we’ll just have more active users, … we’ll have more repeat users, because we’ll be able to approve more people,” Levchin said.  Earnings results show that 40% of all Affirm transactions in fiscal year 2024 came from consumers transacting quarterly or more often, a stark increase from just 10% in fiscal year 2021, according to the company’s letter to shareholders. The average transactions per active consumer reached 4.9 in Q4 2024.

Elsewhere, and still within the platform space, Robinhood announced that it now offers stock lending for British customers, part of the platform’s ongoing U.K. expansion.  As detailed this week, the offering lets customers lend out any fully paid stock in their portfolio, with Robinhood taking care of finding interested borrowers.  This past week, shares slipped 3.5%.

Once shares are loaned out, the company said, customers can use the app dashboard to track earnings, see their positions and enable or disable lending. Stocks are backed by cash collateral at a third-party bank for additional protection, Robinhood added.

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A PYMNTS Intelligence report, “No-Wait Wages: Leveraging Instant Payments to Boost Employee Satisfaction,” created in collaboration with The Clearing House, highlights how instant payroll solutions are becoming essential in addressing the growing demand for financial flexibility.

The Urgent Need for Real-Time Pay

Workers today are grappling with increased financial pressure, driving a new urgency for on-demand pay. According to the report, 83% of workers desire more frequent pay schedules, a significant shift from the traditional biweekly or semimonthly pay periods.

The push for instant payroll is driven by inflation and a 24% increase in average spending per person, which has strained many workers’ budgets. This financial burden often pushes workers toward high-interest payday loans, worsening their debt. Instant payroll addresses this by giving employees timely access to their earnings, helping them manage expenses and avoid costly loans.

Companies Embrace Instant Payroll Solutions

For younger workers, the need for real-time access to earnings is even more critical. About 70% of Americans report feeling stressed about their personal finances, with 75% of adults aged 18-34 expressing significant financial anxiety. Among Generation Z, 79% of hourly workers admit they frequently lack sufficient funds to cover their bills on time.

According to the report, workers are willing to pay for real-time payroll, but employers seeking to create a healthy working environment should offer this benefit for free. As demand for real-time payroll increases, many companies are adopting these solutions, but some workers are already using costly third-party services with annual interest rates up to 330%.

Companies like DailyPay, which recently raised $175 million and partners with major employers such as Hilton and Target, show that integrating earned wage access (EWA) platforms can improve hiring and retention. For employers, investing in in-house real-time payroll solutions offers a strategic advantage in boosting employee satisfaction and loyalty.

Retention and Satisfaction: The Benefits of No-Fee Payroll

Providing employees with instant access to their wages can significantly boost job satisfaction and retention. Consider that 78% of consumers express high satisfaction with instant payouts, although only 36% currently receive their disbursements this way. Fee-free instant payments have been shown to increase satisfaction by 11% and nearly double the likelihood of employee loyalty.

For businesses facing staffing challenges, the impact of offering no-fee instant payroll can be profound. Forty-six percent of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) struggle with staffing shortages, and 42% report difficulties with employee retention.

In such an environment, implementing real-time payroll can provide a competitive edge. Not only does it address the growing demand for financial flexibility, but it also improves employee morale and reduces turnover. As businesses navigate a tight labor market, the ability to offer instant, fee-free payroll could become a crucial factor in attracting and retaining talent.

As employee expectations evolve, the demand for instant payroll reflects broader changes in financial needs. Workers seek flexibility and immediate access to their earnings, compelling employers to adapt. Real-time payroll solutions help address these financial pressures, enhancing job satisfaction and retention.

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The company will use the new funding to grow its AI lab in Tel Aviv and to expand its global go-to-market teams, according to a Thursday (Sept. 5) press release.

“For financial institutions, compliance and growth can be seen as two competing priorities,” Nir Laznik, co-founder and CEO of Sedric, said in the release. “With our compliance LLM [large language model], we turn risk into a growth opportunity. Enterprises now have an opportunity to implement a proven, bank-ready solution that is successfully operational and already widely adopted across the financial services industry.”

Sedric’s platform helps financial institutions meet the expectations of regulators at a time when there is growing attention being paid to generative AI, the opportunity it presents for financial institutions to expand their product offerings, and the potential compliance risk that comes with this and other new tech, according to the release.

The platform helps compliance officers gain a holistic view of their customer touchpoints across multiple channels, flag deviations from their compliance policies and guidelines, and quickly take corrective actions, the release said.

Sedric has a growing base of customers in the United States and Europe and has increased its revenue fivefold over the last 12 months, per the release.

The company’s latest funding round was led by Foundation Capital.

Charles Moldow, general partner at Foundation Capital, said in the release that Laznik, Sedric Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Eyal Peleg and the Sedric team have developed “a forward-looking solution that is 100 times more effective, faster and efficient compared to traditional methods.”

In another recent development in the compliance space, Norm Ai said in June that it raised $27 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI-powered regulatory compliance platform for businesses.

“We are now at an inflection point in AI capabilities that, when properly harnessed, unlock massive improvements in regulatory compliance workflows across the economy,” Norm Ai Founder and CEO John Nay said at the time in a press release.

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The company has quadrupled its revenue and doubled its customer base over the past two years, despite rising interest rates that challenged the global trade sector during that time, Drip Capital Co-founder and CEO Pushkar Mukewar said in a Thursday (Sept. 5) press release.

“Despite these challenges, Drip has emerged as the preferred trade finance platform for SMBs [small- t0 medium-sized businesses] in the U.S. and India,” Mukewar said. “We’ve achieved cash profitability and expanded our business during this period.”

With new investors joining the company’s existing investors and debt partners, Drip Capital is “ready to drive our next phase of growth,” Mukewar added.

Drip Capital currently collaborates with more than 9,000 sellers and buyers in more than 100 countries, helping SMBs manage their cash flows and working capital, according to the release. In the past eight years, the company has financed over $6 billion in trade transactions.

The company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help assess credit risk, streamline operations and enhance customer experiences, the release said. It will continue to invest in that technology.

Drip has also expanded the range of services it offers SMBs by integrating foreign exchange and risk analytics solutions with its core trade financing products, per the release.

The company’s investors include GMO Payment Gateway and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), according to the release.

“Drip’s innovative and comprehensive solutions in digital trade finance are transforming how SMBs engage in trade,” GMO Payment Gateway Executive Vice President Ryu Muramatsu said in the release.

Keiji Matsunaga, general manager of digital strategy department at SMBC, said in the release: “We are excited to contribute to the growth of society and market, by encouraging Japan-India corridor activities via this collaboration.”

Drip seized upon the increased digitization of trade-related data records by using technology and data to calibrate and price the risk involved in brokering cross-border transactions, Mukewar told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in 2021.

“Another very important aspect of our product is looking not just at traditional financial metrics, but also leveraging electronic trade data to be able to really assess the risk of every transaction which we finance,” Mukewar said.

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Bravo said this about three years after his private equity investment firm helped lead a $900 million investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which later went bankrupt and whose founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is now in prison, CNBC reported Thursday.

“Personally, I’m a believer in blockchain. I think it’s a powerful way of doing many things and for many use cases, and I’ve always believed that,” Bravo told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday. “From an investment standpoint, after you make a mistake, you kind of move on.”

Other than that failed investment, Thoma Bravo has become a giant investor in the tech industry, according to the report.

The company has orchestrated acquisitions of Proofpoint, RealPage, Anaplan and Coupa; made exits with the sales of Imperva and Barracuda Networks; and returned about $13 billion to its investors in 2023, per the report.

Thoma Bravo sold Imperva, a cybersecurity firm, to French multinational Thales in July 2023 for $3.6 billion after acquiring the firm in 2018 in a deal valued at $2.1 billion.

Thales Chairman and CEO Patrice Caine said at the time in a press release: “With this acquisition, we are seizing a unique opportunity to accelerate our cybersecurity capabilities and are taking an important step towards our ambition to build a world-class global cybersecurity integrated player, providing a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. We have tremendous respect for Imperva’s innovative application and data security offerings.”

Thoma Bravo bought Coupa, a business spend management firm, in December 2022 for $8 billion, making Coupa a privately held company.

Holden Spaht, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said at the time in a press release: “Coupa has created and led the large and growing business spend management category. We’ve followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent track record of delivering high levels of value for its global customer base.”

The terms of the Coupa deal reflected underlying demand for this niche corner of cost savings, PYMNTS reported in December 2022.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent letters to American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines ordering them to provide information about their rewards programs, practices and policies, the DOT said in a Thursday (Sept. 5) press release.

The letters request information and documents relating to devaluation of earned rewards, hidden and dynamic pricing, extra fees and reduction in competition and choice, according to the release.

Buttigieg said in the release that rewards programs bring real value to consumers and that Americans view their rewards points balances as part of their savings.

“But unlike a traditional savings account, these rewards are controlled by a company that can unilaterally change their value,” Buttigieg said in the release. “Our goal is to ensure consumers are getting the value that was promised to them, which means validating that these programs are transparent and fair.”

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra said in a Thursday statement that the DOT’s inquiry is a key step to prevent “deceptive devaluation tactics that can plague these alternative currencies held by tens of millions of families.”

“Airline valuations are increasingly driven by their points programs and lucrative partnerships with credit card companies, and Americans are paying high interest rates and fees to participate in these programs — yet these tempting points and rewards programs are often depreciated or changed with little notice,” Chopra said in his statement.

Reached for comment by PYMNTS, Southwest Airlines provided a statement saying its Rapid Rewards program helps millions of customers meet their personal travel needs.

“At Southwest, we take great pride in our award-winning Rapid Rewards program, which includes flexible travel policies and unmatched availability of reward seats,” the statement said. “Our commitment to providing customers with Rapid Rewards points that never expire, regardless of how they’re earned, has led us to have double the industry average of seats booked with points.”

Delta Air Lines said in a statement emailed to PYMNTS that it received the DOT’s inquiry and will respond accordingly.

“Our members’ loyalty means everything to us, and providing a meaningful rewards experience is the top priority within Delta’s SkyMiles program,” the statement said.

American Airlines and United Airlines referred PYMNTS to the trade association Airlines for America (A4A) for comment.

A4A said in a statement emailed to PYMNTS that consumers have choice when selecting an airline, carriers want to reward travelers for their return business, and loyalty programs are a way for carriers to say “thank you” to travelers.

“Millions of people enjoy being a part of various loyalty programs, which allow them to accumulate rewards to apply toward travel or other benefits,” the A4A statement said. “U.S. carriers are transparent about these programs, and policymakers should ensure that consumers can continue to be offered these important benefits.”

It was reported in December that the DOT was closely examining the frequent flyer programs of major U.S. airlines, aiming to identify potential deceptive or unfair practices.

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