The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has opened up small businesses to new relationships with community-based financial institutions—and the benefits that come with building business banking partnerships. While the program is not perfect, community banks in particular rose to the occasion, flexing their competitive advantages and value propositions to woo small businesses […]
Part of being an entrepreneur or business owner is that you must become knowledgeable about topics that may not be that closely connected to what your business does. For example, if you opened a restaurant, it’s probably because you have experience in the industry and enjoy providing quality food to your guests. Or, you’re an […]
With all the enthusiastic shopping that takes place during the holiday season, there is no shortage of thieves who want to steal your hard-earned money from you. While a lot of the problem involves packages that are stolen from people’s porches, you also have to be very careful about protecting yourself from credit and debit […]
Even though it’s been three years since retailers have been able to switch to new chip-based credit and debit cards, a recent study shows that payment fraud is still a major concern in the United States as criminals take advantage of remaining vulnerabilities at point of sale, while also focusing more on online merchants. And […]
As a small business, you may be wondering if it’s worth your while to get into offering gift cards to your customers. You may think it involves giving out free money to people, and that’s bad business – right? The thing is, investing in gift cards isn’t nearly as bad as you may think. In fact, […]
People are less sensitive to their spending when they’re holding a gift card. It’s a simple fact, and it’s one of the reasons that you should implement a gift card program for your business. There are many reasons that gift cards bring an increase in sales. There are close to no reasons that you shouldn’t […]
Customers rarely carry cash these days, and they expect merchants to accept debit and credit cards, no matter where they are. That’s why it’s more necessary than ever that businesses have mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) terminals. A mobile point-of-sale terminal can be a tablet, smart phone, or similar wireless device, equipped with point-of-sale apps that act as a traditional POS system. There are many options, […]
For years, we lived by the cash-is-king philosophy. With the rise of mobile payment options, cashless systems continue to be more important. Mobile payments come in many different forms: e-checks, Apple Pay, bank apps, and more. Mobile wallets are one cashless trend that has really taken off in recent years. Since 2015, the number people in the U.S. using mobile wallets increased […]
MasterCard has recently announced that it is creating a new BIN (Bank Identification Number) for their cards. They will start issuing cards beginning with the number “2,” to supplement the existing 5 series of BIN numbers. This not only expands the number of available cards, by creating additional secure and unique numbers, but also meets the need […]
Point-of-sale (POS) systems are evolving, and merchants are moving to these systems in droves as technology makes them more accessible and cost effective. New tablet and mobile products have made POS technology even more affordable and easy to use. In the past, POS systems were so cost prohibitive that only big retailers could afford them. Units ranged from $10,000 to $100,000, making it impossible […]