payments

Back in Person: Southeast Acquirers Association Going Full Speed Ahead With May 24th Event

While positive vaccine predictions began slowly peeking their head out of the media mess that was the fall of ’20, John McCormick and members of the Southeast Acquirers Association (SEAA) had a difficult choice to make: When could they begin planning for an in-person conference?

“It was probably October, November: we thought, okay, are we nuts, or should we do it,” McCormick said. “We just kept saying, well, it seems like we keep hearing good news about vaccines.”

With optimism, McCormick and the team slated a late May reopening. Their bet paid off. With vaccine success and viral loads down so far, things look clear for a return to normal this spring, especially for a payments conference in Bonita Springs, Florida. McCormick said the Hyatt Regency, also eager to reopen business, helped with the planning.

“They said ‘we really want you guys to have the show, we need the business,'” He said. “The location itself is beautiful. Tons of outdoor space, and it’s incorporated into the conference facility so people will really be able to break away and give a little more distance, have a one-on-one and not feel like they’re in a crowd.”

Watching a hackneyed, fazed reopening across the US, SEAA had to plan how to make people feel comfortable meeting, doing business no matter where they were from. Along with picking a venue with 26 acres of property to spread out, they decided to use a color-coated sticker system. Red for “keep your distance,” Yellow for “proceed with caution”, Green for “let’s chat,” and purple for “vaccinated.” Hotel staff will also, of course, be tested and carefully managing the food and distancing.

Their sister events company, the NEAA, had to postpone the planned April show in Philadelphia, but as we know, Florida is open for business.

McCormick is a Founder and board member of (SEAA) and has been active in the payments industry since 1995. Like many events companies, he said, SEAA held a virtual conference last year. While the presentations and education sessions were great, the in-person networking and POS demonstrations a vendor could expect from the conference hall experience were just not up to par.

This year, he said his team is focusing everything toward putting on a safe, “back-to-business with caution” show that is seeing unprecedented interest from firms and industry members excited to, well, shake hands again. If guests are still not ready to meet in person, the big presentations will be streamed to the SEAA site and built into a catalog.

So how many people are attending? McCormick said he’s not sure how many will show up to the Hyatt on May 24th but that the registration numbers ten weeks out are already better than in previous years.

“When we first started, we thought we normally get between 800 and 1,000 people, and we thought you if we can get 600, that would be a success,” McCormick said. “I’d feel great about that, and I think we’re going to hit that number. The interest is there.”

He said the interesting part is that larger firms generally involved in conferences were more cautious this year. A smaller firm with one to 20 people is more likely to say, “Okay, whoever feels comfortable, if you’ve been vaccinated, go ahead and go.” But it’s the larger companies that have called and said, look, we’d love to be there, but we have to wade through legal and manage to approve it.

Still, larger partners this year are excited to sponsor the event, happy to send support for a conference-leading the way back open. McCormick said he’d seen some innovative ways firms are trying to bring their products to the conference platform, like scannable QR codes for video demonstrations. The pandemic has brought virtual innovation, but many people, McCormick said, are excited to return to normal.

“You know, we’re getting awfully close. I really feel like we’re getting there,” McCormick said. “This is the hardest time because you feel it, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if we can just hang on and be responsible for a couple more months, we’ll get there. That’s gonna be sort of the challenge: to remind people, ‘man, we’re all excited, let’s still grab a drink and keep six feet apart.'”

Dwolla Introduces New Push-to-debit Platform

Dwolla, an online payments platform, released a Push-to-Debit functionality that they said will allow faster payouts to a debit card and give clients additional flexibility.

“We have been moving money for quite some time,” VP of Product Ben Schmitt said, “In doing so, we’ve learned a lot about what our customers want.”

Founded in 2008, the Dwolla team has worked to incorporate many different ways for their users to move money. They offer same day, next day, and other payment types, but said customers were always looking for ways to transfer funds faster. Now with Press-to-Debit, Dwolla offers a way to shift funds instantaneously, a product that they say fits many use cases.

“It could be the gig economy, it could be online marketplaces, but people want to move funds faster,” Schmitt said. “And I think especially during a pandemic, getting funds quickly adds a lot of value.”

Dwolla wanted to offer the platform’s simplicity with debit speed. Schmitt said the process is PCI security compliant and nearly instantaneous, though it might take up to 30 minutes.

“The value of instant payments is in getting the funds now when you need them, but there’s an emotional response,” Schmitt said. “When you see the funds hit and they’re instant- when you push a button and show up just like that, it’s fascinating.”

It works not just for debit, but prepaid cards, meaning businesses paying employees or customers don’t need a relationship with a bank to get funds transferred.

“If you’re a gig worker and do some work during the day and finished your shift, you can use an app or website and clock out,” Schmitt said. “Then a business has a record of the work performed, and say ok, here’s the agreed-upon payment and issue that to you right away.”

Google Pay Launches SMB Loans in India, Plans to Expand American Features

This week Google announced that it is expanding its service offerings in India, with small and medium-sized businesses in the country now being able to apply for loans via the Google Pay for Business app. The result of partnerships with banks, Google also announced that it will be rolling all of its SMB-related services into one platform; these include Google My Business, an app that allows owners to make a business profile and get a Google Maps listing; and Google Pay Spot, which lets entrepreneurs customize their digital storefront, as seen by customers in the Google Pay app.

This is just the latest of features released in India by the tech giant, with it launching the ability to transfer money between Google Pay users earlier this year. What makes this interesting though is that in a recent interview with Business Insider, a Google spokesperson noted that the company’s decisions in global markets have become increasingly more influenced by its trialing of new features in India.

“We’re always trying to understand and learn from changing consumer behaviors worldwide so we can build more helpful features,” the spokesperson explained. “Our learnings from Google Pay in India will enable us to make digital money experiences simple, helpful, and accessible and create new economic opportunities for both users and our partners around the world.”

So does this mean Google will soon be joining the likes of Square and Clover and begin offering funding to American small businesses? The future is not so clear, but with the company announcing two weeks ago that it plans to incorporate digital storefronts into Google Pay, serving as an in-app portal to purchase goods, it appears that long-time features of the Indian version are beginning to bleed into the American counterpart.

Having announced its intentions to offer checking accounts in 2020, and with leaks earlier this year pointing towards a Google Pay debit card, it appears as if Google is following in the steps of its rival, Apple, and wading further into the financial services sector.