The Payment Source Blog

Set yourself up to have a highly successful end of 2022 by adding a Prepaid Program with the widest selection of Gift Cards/Prepaid Cards to your store. A Prepaid Program provides the perfect holiday shopping solution for your customers. Adding one will help your retail store see more foot traffic, gain new consumers, and benefit from increased loyalty.

We are a few weeks away from the Atlantic Convenience Expo in Halifax. This show is a great place to network and can help retailers make those important business connections to grow their business.

After a few years of hiatus, Now Prepay is thrilled to finally be able to exhibit at this year's Convenience U CARWACS Show on September 13th and 14th at the Toronto's Congress Centre. With over 300 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, there is no better way to gain insight into the industry than to attend this trade show. It is an excellent resource for any C-Store owner who wants to discover new products and services in the market. As well, you will get critical information on the changing retail landscape and how they can keep their feet in this competitive market.

With the trend towards most consumers shopping online today, retail networks which offer their customers the option for prepaid alternative payments will realize increased foot traffic, customer loyalty and the added benefits of a commission on each transaction. Alternative Payment Methods also allow retailers without an e-commerce platform to participate in the online shopping world. 

Fraud attacks on gift card retail businesses are becoming more and more prominent every year, and the pandemic certainly had an impact. In Canada, retail fraud has increased a whole 15% since pre-pandemic and is now costing Canadian retailers hundreds of millions of dollars every year (see source). With this trend, it is crucial you are aware of fraud, so here are some popular forms of fraud and how to protect yourself from them.

Ecommerce sales — online shopping, esports, online gaming and other internet activities — continue to experience accelerated growth in Canada. Stores can reap the benefits of this trend by offering their customers products and services to help them easily make these types of purchases.

In today's e-commerce based economy, gift cards continue to be both a popular form of currency and a preferred choice for gifting/receiving amongst Canadians. Gift cards offer the flexibility of both in store and online use which is appealing to consumers (see source). When it comes to where to purchase a gift card, 74% of consumers say they regularly buy gift cards from small businesses (see source). They are also considered popular impulse buys (see source) which is why we recommend you position your gift card fixture close to your checkout lane. This time of year shoppers, while  stopping in to their local convenience store for groceries or a gas fill up, suddenly remember that Mothers Day, Fathers Day or someone’s Graduation is just around the corner and they need a gift for that special someone.

As the snow begins to melt and the weather gets warmer, small business owners across Canada are reminded of tax season. A season dreaded not only because it means having to make a payment, but also the stress behind filing them correctly, collecting receipts and meeting deadlines. It can be overwhelming! Here are some tips to help you navigate it:

There has been a shift in the way consumers like to shop. More people than ever before are shopping online and projections show that e-commerce will continue to grow (see source). This shift towards e-commerce was highly accelerated by COVID-19 as lockdowns were put in place and many people chose the safety and convenience of online shopping (see source). This forced many businesses to adapt and take part in the digital space in order to meet their consumers' needs. 

Throughout the years, consumer shopping habits and forms of payments have taken a digital shift. In 2020, close to half of Canadians reported using e-commerce platforms for online purchases, accounting for 477 million transactions (see source). This shift to e-commerce has forced the growth in digital payments; but, traditional digital payments are not inclusive for all Canadians.

Esports is seeing rapid growth in Canada. Online gaming alone is a $40+ million dollar industry with online gamers spending roughly $200 a year on new online games and over $120 a year on in-game items (see source), such as cosmetics, battle passes and tokens. While online transacting is convenient, many consumers aren’t comfortable entering their financial data. In fact, 59% have reported to feel more comfortable using a payment method where they don’t need to share their financial details with the merchant (see source). This is just one of the many benefits of using online payment products to make these types of purchases.

For C-Store owners the new year marks the perfect time to review and align your goals for the year ahead. Many will take stock in what they have learned from the previous year, reviewing where they excelled and where they can improve. But one thing is for sure the beginning of the year, with a fresh start, is the perfect time to execute on that new year’s resolution to increase your store’s revenue.

Holidays are the time of year everyone wants to feel connected with family and friends. People make an extra effort to reach out to those friends and family members whom they may have lost touch with throughout the year. During this season many Canadians will be using their mobile devices to make calls, send texts, and facetime those loved ones they cannot spend the holidays with.

Let’s face it, holiday shopping can be stressful for consumers! The hardest part is trying to figure out what to buy for everyone on their list. We all have that friend or family member that is difficult to shop for. Make the process less stressful for your customers by offering gift cards at your store!

In 2020, the rapid spread of COVID-19 brought many countries around the world into lockdown, resulting in many industries reducing their staffing levels and production, ultimately causing panic and decreased consumer spending (see source). A year later, lockdowns were lifted, and consumer demand skyrocketed and strong consumer spending continued through 2020 and into 2021. This inflated demand in turn put increased pressure on the supply chain industry impacting everything from material and labour shortages to lack of transportation (see source). With COVID-19 still having its effects, it seems like once again the holiday shopping season will be different this year.

Now Prepay was thrilled to be an exhibitor at the 2021 Convenience U CARWACS virtual show. Although this year’s show may have looked a little different, we are thrilled to have exhibited alongside hundreds of highly qualified exhibitors in the convenience industry. This year’s theme was “Discover. Differentiate. Profit.”, with a focus on the newest products and services that are shaping the future of convenience, car wash and gas, in a post-pandemic world (see source).

Every year, more and more Canadians are choosing electronic payments to replace their current payment method (see source). A growing number of customers are looking for smart and simple ways to transact. That’s where we come in. PaySimply is a turn-key solution to help municipalities to accommodate these payment needs. PaySimply is an online bill payment service offering municipalities a no-fee way to accept payments for property taxes and municipal services.

Mobile and app-based banking continues it’s ascent with over 23% of the Canadian population reporting to prefer app-based banking (see source). Traditional apps help you keep on top of your day-to-day transactions, but they don’t help you manage your tax payments. We noticed this gap and responded by launching the PaySimply mobile app. 

The retail environment is always changing as new technology emerges, and new payment methods are offered, which makes a POS (point of sale) system that much more important to a retailer’s store’s success. A POS system not only makes processing transactions easier, it also stores valuable information, such as product inventory, pricing, and all sales data. It also can make or break the shopping experience at your store because when the payment processing time is slow, it can result in the loss of customers. That is why it is important to have the most up to date POS system to provide a seamless shopping experience.

They say improving the way people make payments can contribute to better government efficiency and supports economic activity (see source). And yet, residents are still limited in how they can make these payments. Financial inclusion is important, yet not always easy to achieve. That’s where we come in. 

PaySimply is an online bill payment service offering municipalities a no-fee way to accept payments for property taxes and municipal services. To make your payments widely accessible to everyone, your residents have the choice to pay with a range of online payment methods, or they can pay in-person using debit card or cash at one of the 6,000 Canada Post retail locations across the country.

We live in an age where mobile phones are a major part of our daily lives. The versatility mobile phones bring to our everyday life makes them almost indispensable. Each day, mobile phones are used for everything from communicating with friends and family, entertainment, business, and paying bills. Almost everyone has a mobile phone these days, in fact, last year there were an estimated 31.38 million smartphone users in Canada (see source). This number grows each year and those that already have a mobile phone switch carriers more often than you might think. Growth and subscriber changes offer a regular stream of revenue for businesses, especially in the prepaid mobile space. Hence, why it is very important for small business owners to capitalize on this industry and offer a wide variety of wireless products and services to their customers.

Summer is coming to an end and back to school is upon us, with many heading off to college or university. For many students and parents, back to school is a very busy time of year, which makes it a busy time of year for retailers. Heading to campus dorms requires many essentials beyond those standard pens, books, and new clothes. Being away from home means being self-sufficient and having access to funds to help support expenses like daily meals, textbooks, and emergency money, as well as keeping their prepaid mobile phones topped up. 

The prepaid space is rapidly growing in Canada (see source) and as technology advances so do the different products and services the market has to offer. As a leading provider in this space, Now Prepay has always prided itself on its first to market approach, consistently providing the most innovative prepaid products and services to retailers across Canada.

There are many things you need to consider as a C-store owner or operator to ensure the business runs smoothly, from your product mix offering to ensuring your inventory is fully stocked. However, one important thing that is often overlooked, is educating and protecting yourself and your employees on current scams. It may seem like it's easy to detect fraud but fraudsters are persistent and clever and are constantly evolving their techniques. In fact, 34% of Canadians have fallen victim to fraud last year, with many stating that it's hard to detect fraud as these fraudsters are very convincing in imitating legitimate companies (see source).

C-store owners work very hard to grow their business, so when they are hit with fraud, there are various impacts. It's not only the financial losses, but it also adds a lot of unneeded stress and uncertainty. That is why it is imperative to educate yourself and your employees on ways to protect yourself and your business. Below is a list of three common scams and the steps you need to take to insure your business is protected from fraud:

1. Telephone Scams: a scam that occurs when a fraudster calls your store and impersonates a legitimate company that you work with such as a supplier. They will appear as if they know you and your business, and will usually call you at busy times to make you feel rushed. They will ask you for sensitive information pertaining to your business.

   How to protect yourself: Hang up! Once you are no longer busy, find the number to the company from a legitimate source like a secured website, and call them to verify the earlier call.

This time of year is full of celebrations for the people that we hold close to us. It’s the season of celebrating moms, dads, and grads, however, this year, with the uncertainty of the pandemic and a varying degree of provincial closures, things will look different. On many occasions, people have been choosing to celebrate from a distance through virtual video chats, and even doing a drive-by and showering their loved ones with gifts. However, through all this uncertainty, one thing remains the same, the convenience and flexibility of a gift card is the perfect solution in uncertain times.

The dreaded budget! As a store owner you’re doubly challenged by this difficult and sometimes frustrating task balancing both business and personal finances. We all know the tips and tricks;

• Price comparative shopping
• Use software to help track budgetary items
• Use cash for purchases and avoid unnecessary debt

The use of cash is a tried and true method for sticking to a budget. With online shopping nearly doubling during the pandemic (see source), a number of people are treating prepaid cards as a proxy for cash when shopping online, which can be very helpful!

Online Payment Products (OPVs) are one of the fastest growing products in the Canadian market and demand from consumers is continuously on the rise (see source). Although many Canadians have a credit or debit card, not everyone is comfortable with using them online. That is why this emerging product category is growing in demand, providing customers with alternative ways to pay online. Having Online Payment Products available at your store offers a new revenue stream with repeat business opportunities. 

As 2021 starts to pick up, we begin to plan for the year ahead. Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions (see source), hoping to spark positive changes in their lives, however according to a study published by the Journal of Clinical Psychology, only 46% of people who made New Year’s resolutions were successful (see source). One of the most common resolutions each year is to ‘get organized’ and with the PaySimply mobile app, you can manage and pay your taxes online, so that you never forget a tax payment again. 

Tis’ the season for family and friends, the time of the year for large gatherings with loved ones. However, the holidays will be very different this year as the pandemic continues and health officials asking Canadians to limit their travels (see source) and avoid contact with others (see source) As a result, many Canadians will not be seeing their family or friends over the holidays, which can mean a very lonely time of the year for some. 

It’s less than two weeks till Christmas, and many people have been struggling to find the perfect gift. It is not always an easy task, especially during these unprecedented times with many holiday shoppers trying to avoid crowded malls. There are some very organized shoppers who started their holiday shopping early, and are currently sitting by the fireplace, drinking their hot cocoa with giant smiles on their faces. But not everyone is as organized, many leave their holiday shopping till the last minute.

As Covid-19 continues to shape our behaviours, Canadians have embraced e-commerce. Government measures were put in place with many businesses reducing hours, and nonessential businesses being forced to close (see source), causing Canadians to move to e-commerce which greatly tipped the scales in favour of online versus traditional purchasing. In fact, retail sales saw a decline in May of 17.9% from February, while online shopping nearly doubled with a 99.9% increase (see source). Although many retailers have recovered since then (see source), the pandemic may have a long lasting impact on the retail industry, as many retail stores have already closed permanently due the changes in Canadian shopping habits (see source).

The prepaid market is one of the fastest and most innovative growing payment segments in Canada (see source). According to a study commissioned by the CPPO, as of the end of 2019 open-loop cards such as prepaid Visa or Mastercard have achieved 3 consecutive years of 25% growth to the previous year. This amounts to Canadians loading a staggering $4.8 billion dollars onto these prepaid cards. According to Theodore Iacobuzio, vice president of research and director of the Prepaid Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group, we can expect to see continued evolution as prepaid cards in Canada are only in the early stages of their life cycle. 

Consumer shopping habits have shifted towards online shopping over the last few years thanks to ecommerce (see source). In fact, retail ecommerce in Canada will reach CA$52.04 billion this year, up by 20.7%. To provide a seamless consumer experience and provide a way to gap the bridge between brick-and-motor with ecommerce, C-store owners need to adapt. 

Consumer shopping habits are changing and retailers have to adapt to ensure they are positioned to take advantage of these shifting behaviours. Historically, Canada’s e-commerce market has been slow to develop but in the coming months and years it is expected to grow significantly and it’s predicted that Canada will catch up to other international marketplaces (see source) Approximately 80% Canadians shop online and are buying more items, more often than ever before, and across a variety of product categories (see source) displaying that the e-commerce market is becoming the ‘new normal’ of shopping.

We lost our friend and colleague George DeMarchi this week. The suddenness and finality are still shocking.

As the messages of condolence and support have come flooding in from all corners of George’s business network, I’ve been reading and re-reading them, looking for patterns and meaning. It’s clear that he impacted many people in many positive ways. The most common words used are mentor and friend.

As a store owner or manager your customers’ safety matters to your revenue, after all without them your business can’t succeed.  In our previous blog, we highlighted Common Fraud that C-Store Owners Need To Know and how you can protect yourself. In this blog, we will focus on how fraudsters are targeting your consumers, and what you can do to help protect them. 

March may be Fraud Prevention Month, but this is a topic that should be in the back of your head no matter the time of year. Did you know one out of every five small businesses has been a victim of fraud (see source)? As a C-Store owner or manager you’ve put in a lot of hard work and dedication to grow your business, so you need to make sure you are doing everything you can to keep it protected from fraud and revenue loss. Luckily there are many steps you can take to stop these fraudsters from making you their next victim. 

We are less than two weeks away from Canada’s largest convenience industry event of the year. On March 3-4th, the Convenience U CARWACS Show will be held at Toronto’s Congress Centre. With over 300 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, there is no better way to gain insight into the industry than to attend this trade show. It is a great resource for any C-Store owner that wants to discover new products and services available to them in the market. As well as, get key insights on the changing retail landscape, and how they can keep their feet in this competitive market.

The biggest shopping weekend is right around the corner with Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up on November 29th and December 2nd. Thousands of stores and online retailers are preparing to ensure shopaholics (us included) have an amazing and successful shopping weekend.

Having a prepaid program in your store can help you gain foot traffic, increase revenue, and grow your business. It’s important to keep your customers happy by staying up to date with the latest products and technologies. 

It’s almost been a year since graduation and I couldn’t be happier with where I landed my first full-time job -- at an innovative FinTech company called Payment Source. If you’re a close friend of mine you’ll know I am passionate about what I do, and begin to geek out when someone asks me what it is that Payment Source has to offer.

What another great year at the Toronto CARWACS Show. With over 200 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, there is no better way to gain insight into the industry then to attend this trade show. As you may have experienced, this show is a great resource for any C-Store owner that wants to discover new products and services available to them in the market.

Convenience Store owners and operators know how challenging it can be to find space for new products in their store floor plan. Space is at a premium - and frankly, that’s just how it should be. Every square foot in a store should be dedicated to items that customers are looking for and want to buy. That’s why it's so important to be constantly looking at your product mix and ensuring that you keep up with customer demands.

Ultimately, every Convenience Store owner has the same question.  How do I bring more customers to my store on a regular basis? The answer is to provide them with products and solutions that create a repeat visit behavior. You want to start stocking your shelves with items that customers regularly want to buy - sounds easy enough, right? But in reality, it’s a lot harder than it sounds.  Did you know that Prepaid Products provides that repeat customer visit behavior you’re looking for?

It’s almost that time of year! As an avid holiday shopper, I know that gift giving can be a headache, especially when the malls are packed with impatient holiday shoppers. Your customers may have several people on their holiday shopping list, which only makes navigating their way through this busy time of year that much more stressful.

We are only a few weeks away from Atlantic Canada’s prominent industry event for c-store and petroleum retailers, the Atlantic Convenience Expo (ACE) - happening for the first time this year! Join Now Prepay at ACE this October 24, 2018 at the Halifax Convention Centre to learn how our prepaid and payment solutions can help you grow your business!

Being a c-store owner can be very competitive, from the location of your store to the products that you offer. You need to make sure that you offer all the products that your customers want in order to be successful in your business. That is why it is important to offer products that are innovative  and increasing in demand.

I was planning for my European adventure; a trip I have wanted to go on since my college days, but never found the right time. Last year I decided to go for it, and the summer of 2018 was my year to travel to Europe. After a lot of research of places I wanted to see, mixed with affordable flights, I decided on Ireland, Czech, Poland, Hungary, and a 10 hour layover in Portugal which I thought was enough time to go sightseeing for the day.

As a small business owner, you know that there’s a lot of items on your ‘to do list’ that take up your time. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day, and you’re lucky if you have the chance to pause and take a break for yourself in a regular day.  And then comes tax time. As a small business owner, tax time can sometimes feel like the proverbial straw that breaks your back. There’s a lot to do, and you need to find the time to do it. Luckily there are some ways you can make paying your business taxes a bit easier to handle.  Here are 5 tips to get you started:

For the majority of e-commerce history, credit cards have been practically the only way to make payments. If you didn’t have a credit card, had maxed your limit, or didn’t want to share it online, you were out of luck. In the early days, this was sufficient as there were other larger issues for online retailers to deal with such as logistics and shipping costs. As 92% of Canadians have a credit card, this was a case of ‘good enough’. But, as Bob Dylan says “The times, they are a changin’”.

When one thinks of the government payments, it doesn’t necessarily conjure up thoughts of innovation or change. Government is typically slow to change, which is not always a bad thing. When it comes to public policy and what’s best for Canadian’s a bit of reflection and thought can go a long way.

I’m immensely proud of this achievement and of the team at Payment Source who’ve made it happen.

Today, the Canadian payments landscape consists of traditional payment methods that consumers have grown to trust: cash, debit, credit, check, prepaid products, and gift cards. What will tomorrow hold?

For most of us, the New Year is a time to push the reset button. New beginnings are found, bigger goals are set, and self-reflection often takes place. Do I want to get in shape or learn a new language? Maybe I want to work towards a promotion in my career. Sound familiar? - These are all questions we ask ourselves as we begin to develop a plan for the New Year ahead. 2018 is officially here and for some, it can be difficult to stay true to our New Year’s resolutions, especially when they seem overly ambitious. I know too many people, including myself that will set a goal, stick to it for maybe two to three weeks and then drop it like a hot potato.

Canadians are increasingly adopting prepaid cards as a tool to help them manage their finances. The Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization (CPPO) recently released its second annual benchmark study, entitled Canadian Open-Loop Prepaid Market: 2016 that shows 17 percent growth of the open-loop prepaid card market in Canada between 2015 and 2016.

Yes, you heard correctly! It’s officially two weeks until Christmas. What does this mean aside from the obvious of drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows and wearing onesies by the fireplace? It means that it’s time to think about the gifts you will be purchasing for your friends and family. Now, if you’re anything like me, you know that last minute shopping can be a tedious and often overwhelming task. You’re racing in and out of crowded stores only to find out that your perfect gift just isn’t there!

Cyber Monday, the biggest day in the eCommerce world is rapidly approaching on Nov 27th. Last year, sales topped $3.4 Billion dollars in Canada, a huge amount, but still much less than the amount spent in-store on Black Friday. Even as Canadians get more comfortable shopping online, there are some notable barriers that keep many from taking advantage of the online deals. For example, according to the Bank of Canada, less than 40% of Canadians view online transactions with credit cards as secure and 59% will abandon their cart if their preferred payment method is not in place.

Attention all shopaholics, save the date! - Black Friday is right around the corner, falling on November 24th!  Like most Americans, Canadians treat this iconic holiday as a big deal. Lucky for us, we get an entire weekend to take advantage of all the amazing sales. Not only is it prime time to splurge on some great deals for yourself, it’s also a perfect time to shop for the upcoming holiday season. Who wants to spend full price on a luxury item when you can get it for half the price? Not me! Now, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but did you know? 

It is evident that today’s youth is quickly parting ways from “old fashioned” methods of payment, and are paying for things in ways that their parents and grandparents never imagined. Not surprisingly, it is becoming easier to purchase new clothes, some shoes, or even a coffee from the local Starbucks by just flashing a mobile app. Paying for these same things while travelling is a different story… or so I thought.

Last month, my wife Liliya and I finally took the trip to Paris we have been talking about for the past six years.  It wasn’t my first trip there, but it had been long enough since my last visit that whatever travel lessons I had picked up previously were reduced to vague memory.  We were effectively starting from scratch as far as being tourists in the ‘city of light’.  Now, having had that experience, I’m sharing a few insights that I hope will be helpful for others who are likewise acting on a European travel ambition.

I’m always amazed at the number of new Fintech startups in the market, many of which are creating fantastic new experiences and services to help facilitate banking, payments, wealth management and others. And all of these seem to be targeting the same consumer - the tech savvy, mobile-enabled millennial. While this is all well and good, there is a darker side to this innovation - namely that it’s creating larger and larger gaps between this target group and many other Canadians who are not yet comfortable or capable of operating in this brave new world.

There’s a type of transaction that’s opening up the world of digital payments to an expanded set of consumers. The transaction isn’t new, but the terminology used to describe it definitely is. Specifically, I’m talking about a consumer going into a store to hand over funds to load an account, pay a bill or complete an online transaction. What’s unique about this is that all of these transactions are unrelated to the goods actually sold by that store.

In last week's blog, I talked about the different types of prepaid fraud. This week I will discuss how to identify the fraudsters behind these scams.

Over the past few years there has been a shift in the market when it comes to fraud. Five or more years ago, you saw messages everywhere about keeping your debit card safe, and to never give your banking or credit card information to anyone. But no one really focused on prepaid products. The fraudsters were too busy working on their next debit skimming plan or credit card scam. Then one day, we started receiving calls from our retailers asking why we didn’t cancel the prepaid voucher they printed like we said we would? We quickly realized that fraudsters have been calling our locations impersonating our support team and stealing PIN information from vouchers. That is when the shift began to take place from traditional debit and credit fraud to a focus on the prepaid world.

Travelling gives you the benefit of experiencing other cultures, meeting different people, and learning new things that you can take back with you. Everyone wants to be smarter, sharper, have that extra edge in their lives. What people do not realize is that travelling gives you the kind of smarts that a book can’t.  

In my earlier years of my career I had the luxury of working for a passionate entrepreneur who became a mentor to me very quickly. He helped me to learn the ropes of managing a business but more importantly saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. He pushed me to take risks and promoted me into roles that I didn't think I could handle. During my career at Tangarine Payment Solutions, I found that I had a knack for building strong and critical business relationships. I am proud to say that I am still in touch with most of these partners through one way or another and have turned to some of these for additional mentoring. As most of us do, I have tried to build a network around me of other strong business men and woman that I can turn to at any time.

Choosing which charities to support is a very personal choice. In many cases, a donor to a charity is personally connected to the cause based on their own history and background.

Our love for cross-border shopping as Canadians down to the US can vary with the mood of our Canadian dollar exchange rate to the US dollar.

Here are six tips to get the best value out of your trip. 

You might be familiar with the “30 before 30 Challenge”, which essentially is all about visiting 30 countries before hitting the age of 30 years old. I, like several of my millennial peers, have set this challenge for myself to keep motivated - to see and do more. From cuddling koalas and learning how to surf (not at the same time of course), to climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge at sunset, taking selfies with kangaroos and perhaps trying a bite of Vegemite if I was really feeling adventurous. Australia had been at the top of my travel bucket list for as long as I can remember. It didn’t take me long upon landing my first full-time job after university a few years ago to realize just how truly precious each and every vacation day is. Do you take the more calculated approach and carefully space them out throughout the year, or do you throw caution to the wind and plan the trip of a lifetime using every single day attached to my employee number. Naturally, I chose the second option – in the clichéd words of a millennial, there would be #NoRegrets.  

Despite the highest internet penetration in the world (93% of Canadians have access to the internet), eCommerce adoption has lagged in Canada. According to a recent survey by CIGI Ipsos, 22% of Canadians never shop online and only 23% shop online more than once per month. In other words, somewhere between 6-12 Million Canadians either don’t or are reluctant to shop online.

We may be living in the 21st century, but according to the Global Findex Report, 2 billion adults globally are unbanked (see source). You may think that this number reflects third world countries that do not have the technological capabilities or financial means. However, this number includes developed countries such as the United States, where 28% of the population is either unbanked or underbanked (see source). In most cases the unbanked are people living in poverty that do not have the funds or education to be part of the banking system. But poverty is not the only reason people refuse to be part of the mainstream banking system.

Below are some reasons people are unbanked:

Over the past few years, you may have heard some chatter about the growth and popularity of the prepaid payment cards in Canada. It’s not surprising.

The big news - in my world at least - is that Loadhub has won Gold as the Most Innovative Cash Product at the 2017 PYMNTS Innovators’ Forum.

The launch of the first Amazon Go store in December is the sign of a continued evolution of omni-channel payment experiences that began with the launch of the first eCommerce stores back in the mid-to late nineties. To me, this is the the final realization of a brand’s promise to allow a consumer to engage in an experience wherever and however they want.

Planning a big trip is almost as much fun as the trip itself – but there are parts of the planning that I don’t enjoy at all:  trip insurance, health insurance and money management.  For money management, I want a straight-forward and cost effective way to access funds so that I’m not caught by surprise later at what my purchases actually cost me. I’m also mindful that I have to have a plan B and plan C in case I lose my wallet or my card doesn’t work for some reason. It’s no good being in paradise if I can’t use my money to pay for anything.

In Canada, we may not have Black Friday officially - but that doesn’t stop would be shoppers from taking advantage of the deals on both sides of the border during the season.  In 2016, Black Friday continued to gain momentum in Canada with consumer spending up almost 6% from last year (see source). In fact, Black Friday was the biggest day for retailers in 2016 in terms of sales volume (see source) - which marks a huge shift from previously seen retail patterns in Canada where Boxing Day ruled.