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industryUpdate

fintech innovators and leaders from around the world in a range of catego- Younger generations drive
ries, including personal finance, lending, payments, investments, regtech and gift card ecommerce
insurtech.
New research from Blackhawk
Pyrofex introduces blockchain, payment platform Network revealed a generational
divide in the way younger con-
Pyrofex reported that CDelta, its open source, proof-of-stake blockchain and sumers shop, pay and engage with
payment platform built using Casanova's consensus system, will be able to gift cards. Although brick-and-
process 50,000 transactions per second at launch. "By developing a solution mortar retail has a strong foothold
for the long-standing latency issue suffered by blockchains, we aim to lay the in the market, demand for egifts
groundwork for adoption of crypto payment dapps [decentralized applica- from Gen Z and millennial con-
tions], which are far more private than credit cards and eliminate the need sumers is rapidly catching up with
for unnecessary fees paid to app and credit card companies as well as banks," demand for physical gift cards,
Pyrofex founder and CEO Nash Foster, noted. Blackhawk noted. While gift card
merchants are increasingly embrac-
RESEARCH ing omnichannel gift card options,
there is room for progress in their

SMBs shifting away from traditional lending practices offerings, researchers found.
Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) prioritize speed of payment and favor- Showrooming, webrooming
able interest rates when selecting a lender, according to a new study by Swift popular in Asia
Prepaid Solutions, which specializes in prepaid corporate disbursements transcosmos inc. conducted a sur-
and incentive payments. Researchers found that of the 38 percent of respon- vey of 3,200 online shoppers in 10
dents who took out loans in the last 18 months, 64 percent intend to apply Asian cities to gauge their online
for another loan in the coming year. They also said interest rates, closely shopping habits, in particular use
followed by speed of payment, are most important when choosing a lender. of showrooming and webrooming.
Sixty-two percent of online shop-
pers in Tokyo had showroomed;
more than 80 percent had show-
roomed in other Asian cities. Fifty-
four percent had webroomed in
Tokyo; that figure was close to 70
percent in Beijing and Taipei. In all
locations surveyed, online shoppers
favored showrooming and web-
rooming for purchasing apparel,
home appliances, PCs, cosmetics
and medicine.

PARTNERSHIPS

EVO, eHopper POS integrate

EVO Payments Inc., a provider of
payment technology integration
and acquiring solutions, formed a
strategic relationship with eHop-
per, a POS provider specializing
in mobile, web-based and desktop
POS software. Merchants using
eHopper software will now be able
to use EVO's payment processing
services to accept credit and debit
card payments.

Vladimir Basin, general manager at
eHopper POS, stated the relation-
ship with EVO is a critical compo-

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