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Payments Perspectives Blog

Gaining Confidence, and Shopping for Big Ticket Items: The U.S. Consumer

Sarah Quinlan |

MasterCard’s latest SpendingPulse report showed May 2013 annual retail sales growth at 4.4 percent, and a three-month average year-over-year growth of 3.3 percent. These data point to a growing willingness on the part of American consumers to spend. The “how” is if anything just as important as the “what.” One of the reasons for the
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Finding the Emerging Affluent: Follow the Technology

Geoff Quintiere |

It is common knowledge that banks are faced with a challenge to generate, or should I say regenerate revenue on a consistent basis. As a result of a combination of forces that include regulatory and economic pressures as well as technological and consumer trends, banks are taking action to identify debit cardholders whose POS spend
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Prepaid, Big Data and Credit Worthiness: Themes from the 8th Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum

Sabrina Tharani |

The 8th Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum in Miami last week was a three-day collaboration involving financial service innovators—representatives from networks, like yours truly, to banks and credit unions, payment and technology firms, non-profit organizations, researchers and regulators. In a series of seminars, keynote speeches, networking sessions and information luncheons, the industry united on a
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Spending, but Cautious: The U.S. Consumer Situation

Nitin Sumangali |

The U.S. consumer is spending more, but remains cautious about what he’s spending on, focusing on “needs” rather than just “wants.” That’s the takeaway from MasterCard’s Sarah Quinlan in her June 10 appearance on Bloomberg. Quinlan notes that while MasterCard SpendingPulse indicates that May retail sales growth was 4.4 percent, the strongest since November of
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Putting Small Businesses at the Heart of the Economic Recovery

Amit Jain |

The economies of China, the United States and Germany couldn’t be more different – but there’s one thing they have in common: small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are, in each of these markets, key engines for growth through innovation. Consider this:  In the U.S., among high-patenting technology firms, SMEs produce 16 times more patents per
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