Proposed legislation in the cities of New York, Washington and Philadelphia would prevent merchants from banning cash payments at retail stores and restaurants. Aimed at protecting unbanked and underbanked consumers, the prospective bills have garnered support from the ATM Industry Association and National ATM Council.

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Last year marked a milestone year for the Automated Clearing House, as the network’s volume of cleared payments climbed to nearly 1.5 billion, driven in part by same-day payments and person-to-person (P2P) transactions. 2018 also marked the fourth straight year of ACH growth in excess of 1 billion payments, reports NACHA, the Electronic Payments Association. In all, 23 billion payments valued at $51.2 trillion cleared through the ACH last year. NACHA noted that the total value of ACH payments was more than 2.5 times that of the nation’s 2017 gross domestic product.

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New findings from Marqeta, published Feb. 21, 2019, indicate millennials are less likely than older consumers to remain loyal to their banks. Compiled from a sampling of 1,200 adults, survey data found 48 percent of millennials would consider moving to a digital-only bank; only 1 in 6 respondents could not imagine changing banks. Researchers also observed a growing movement away from paper and electronic checks, with 48 percent of millennials claiming they "couldn't remember the last time they wrote a check for something other than utilities and rent." According to industry observers, banks are feeling the pinch of the always-on economy and its expanding array of mobile payments and consumer touch points, and with younger generations firmly entrenched in these new tools, this trend is expected to accelerate. Thus, companies need to innovate to solve complex problems for an increasingly diverse set of customer preferences.

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A new report from the Electronic Transactions Association and The Strawhecker Group revealed that U.S. consumers increased usage of electronic payment options at a rapid clip last year, outpacing overall growth in gross domestic product. According to the U.S. Spending Snapshot, published this week by the ETA and TSG, consumer spending with credit and debit cards and mobile wallets grew by 7.2 percent year-over-year for the third quarter of 2018, more than doubling the 3.5 percent year-over-year growth recorded for the third quarter of 2017.

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The ATM industry is celebrating historic milestones in 2019, as U.S. ATMs approach their 50th birthday, and the ATM Industry Association is holding its 20th annual conference Feb. 19 to 20 at Disney World’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Fla. Themed ATMs and Apps: The New World of Customer Experience, the event has attracted legacy players and newcomers across expanding self-service channels. ATMIA conference organizers said security features prominently in the agenda; they are also publicizing industry initiatives, which include the following:

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Retail sales during the year-end 2018 holiday season grew at a lower than expected 2.9 percent over the same period in 2017 to total $707.5 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. That fell short of the 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent gains the NRF predicted at the start of the year-end holiday season. "Today's numbers are truly a surprise and in contradiction to the consumer spending trends we were seeing, especially after such strong October and November spending," NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said.

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Womply, a provider of business analytics via software-as-a-service (SaaS), partnered with leading global payments acquirer Elvaon to help small and midsize businesses (SMBs) attract, retain and engage their customers. The technology suite, launched Feb. 13, 2019, addresses growing demand by SMBs for value-added services, the partners stated.

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Consumer advocacy groups are criticizing plans by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to tone down Obama-era protections against predatory lending practices. The mandated protections, which became law in 2017 as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, required lenders to confirm borrowers' ability to repay loan products. An additional provision called for a cooling off period before "re-upping" serial borrowers with three back-to-back short-term loans.

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Contactless payments may be tough to sell consumers, but that hasn't stopped Visa from trying. The official payments services partner of the National Football League, Visa enabled half of the concession stands at this year's Super Bowl to accept tap-and-go payments. And as previously reported in "Visa, NFL team up for payments at Super Bowl LIII," under The Green Sheet's Breaking Industry News, Visa is promising to expand the capability throughout NFL stadiums under terms of a new agreement extending its NFL partnership through the 2025 football season. Visa has been promoting contactless payments for more than 20 years. Some of the earliest tests of contactless payments occurred in sports stadiums.

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Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is in a tailspin following the apparent death of its owner, 30-year-old Gerry Cotton. Thousands of investors in the exchange have been locked out of more than C$180 million, or approximately US$136 million, since Cotton's demise was reported in December 2018. He left no password to the software wallets containing investors' funds, which he maintained on his laptop computer.

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The alarming acceptance of security breaches and data abuse as inevitable is the focus of the Identity Theft Resource Center's 2018 End-of-Year Data Breach Report. Published in January 2019 and sponsored by CyberScout, the report aggregates public data breach records to identify emerging threat patterns. In addition to garden variety data breaches, researchers found widespread data abuse involving users opting in to data mining entities. "Not all data incidents are categorized as a breach – this includes incidents of misuse," researchers wrote. "We have found the need to include the existence of these incidents, but not necessarily include them in our reporting. Case in point, this year was the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica incident, which we currently categorize as data abuse and not a breach since users provided permission to the entity originally collecting the information."

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An independent study published by Blackhawk Network found growth in real-time loyalty programs is largely driven by younger consumers. The report, A Heart-to-Heart About Increasing Loyalty, was based on a survey of 1,500 loyalty program participants across numerous verticals, including retail, airline, hotel, food and beverage, online retail, bank, gym, telecom, and utility sectors. Citing gift cards as the most popular redemption method, researchers found a majority of respondents redeem small rewards frequently, cashing out before rewards reach the $100 mark.

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U.S. ATMs will turn 50 on Sept. 2, 2019, and the National ATM Council will host a series of events leading up to the historic occasion. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based not-for-profit trade association, established in 2011 on behalf of independent ATM deployers (IADs), designated 2019 as The Year of the ATM in America. NAC executive director Bruce Renard said the year-long celebration will combine festivities with education. "NAC has planned a special educational outreach during 2019, designed to highlight this 50-year milestone and the importance of ATMs to U.S. consumers, policymakers, merchants and other related industries," Renard said. "We see the 50th anniversary of America's first ATM as a time for reflection and celebration, but also as an important learning opportunity for our nation."

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The Los Angeles Rams will face the New England Patriots for Super Bowl LIII, which is coming up Sun., Feb. 3, 2019, at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. And Visa, a partner of the National Football League since 1995, just renewed its agreement with the NFL to serve as the league’s Official Payment Services Technology Partner through the 2025 season.

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