During the 2021 holiday season, the Salvation Army's iconic Red Kettles in select cities accepted contactless donations. Visa piloted a program with the Salvation Army to tap-and-go enable 2,000 Red Kettle stations across the East and West Coasts. Visa is also working with tiptap, a Canadian firm that builds NFC-enabled wireless devices for contactless giving applications. Contactless payments—using contactless cards and mobile devices—have rapidly grown over the past 20 months, propelled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have been using credit, debit and prepaid cards less frequently, but when they do pay with cards they tend to spend more. They also have been using low-contact payment methods, like ecommerce, digital wallets and the automated clearing house (ACH), a lot more. These are key findings contained in a report released by the Federal Reserve Board released on Dec. 23, 2021.
Fintech startup lopay entered the payments scene with a message from its CEO, Richard Carter, to industry leading SumUp, Zettle and Square. 'We knew the time was right to break the stranglehold the big three had over this sector," Carter said in a Dec. 23, 2021, statement. "And that's what we're doing. The ethos behind lopay is simple: everyone should have more control over the money they earn and access the rates they deserve." Carter claimed the instant app, just launched in the United Kingdom, will shake up the industry with "ground-breaking transaction rates," while giving participating merchants more control over when and how they get paid.
2021 retail holiday sales exceeded analyst expectations by a margin of 8.5 percent, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, a monthly report featuring visually enhanced metrics highlighting emerging trends. Designed to help business owners identify emerging trends, the reports cover numerous sectors, including restaurants, lodging and total retail, Mastercard stated. Steve
Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard, observed that holiday shopping began early and sustained momentum throughout the season. "Shoppers were eager to secure their gifts ahead of the retail rush, with conversations surrounding supply chain and labor supply issues sending consumers online and to stores in droves," he said.
New research indicates 67 percent of consumers who own cryptocurrencies are willing to make mobile wallet purchases using their crypto assets. Cryptocurrencies have emerged from the shadows, as the value of some cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ether, have skyrocketed. This has prompted consumers to join the wave. A November 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center found that nine in 10 adult Americans had heard about cryptocurrency. Sixteen percent of adults have invested in, traded or otherwise used at least one cryptocurrency, Pew found. 
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