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STR, Tourism Economics Say Cost of Living Impacts Hotel Performance

2024-06-04T01:13:11Z

The hotel industry’s performance is being impacted by reduced travel volume caused by the rising cost of goods and services.

So said STR, a provider of data, analytics and insights for the global hospitality industry, and Tourism Economics, a provider of intelligence on the economy and the travel sector, in a Monday (June 3) press release about their 2024-25 U.S. hotel forecast.

The companies have downgraded their forecast, pointing to lower-than-expected hotel performance so far in 2024 and lessened growth forecasts for the rest of the year, according to the release.

In their forecast, the companies downgraded their projected gains in average daily rate (ADR) by 1.0 percentage point and in revenue per available room (RevPAR) by 2.1 percentage points, the release said. They now expect occupancy for the year to decline, after previously expecting year-over-year growth.

The companies also made downward adjustments in their projections for hotel performance in 2025, with their projected gains in ADR down 0.8 percentage points and in RevPAR down 0.9 percentage points, per the release. They left their occupancy growth projection for 2025 in place.

During the first four months of 2024, STR and Tourism Economics saw a “bifurcation in hotel performance” that they “don’t believe will abate soon,” Amanda Hite, president of STR, said in the release.

“The increased cost of living is affecting lower-to-middle income households and their ability to travel, thus lessening demand for hotels in the lower price tier,” Hite said. “The Upscale through Luxury tier is seeing healthy demand, but pricing power has waned given changes in mix and travel patterns and to a lesser extent, economic conditions.”

Aran Ryan, director of industry studies at Tourism Economics, said in the release that both middle- and lower-income consumer spending and business investment have been pressured by interest rates that are still elevated and wage growth that has slowed.

“Looking beyond this near-term pull-back in demand at lower-tier properties, we expect moderate travel growth to resume, supported by a tempered economic expansion and the continued rebound of group, business and international travel,” Ryan said.

During an April earnings call, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts CEO Geoff Ballotti said the hotel chain has some “concern” about middle-income guest traffic weighing on the summer travel season.

“But what we’re seeing is that that middle-income guest is more employed, and we look at their wages and their savings, it’s they’re higher than they were back in pre-COVID levels,” Ballotti said during the April 25 call. “Their home prices are up, their stocks are up, their deposit levels are stable and they’re in good shape.”

Hotel chain Marriott International said May 1 during its quarterly earnings call that it saw its RevPAR increase 4.2% year over year during the first quarter, driven largely by growth in international markets.

“While overall industry RevPAR growth is normalizing post-COVID, we continue to gain RevPAR index across our portfolio and increase our market share of global hotels,” Marriott President and CEO Anthony Capuano said during the call.

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Georgia-Based Pinnacle Bank Adopts CorServ Credit Card Program

2024-06-03T23:48:29Z

Georgia-based Pinnacle Bank has tapped CorServ to launch a credit card program for commercial, business and consumer customers.

The bank transitioned from its previous Agent Bank program to CorServ’s Account Issuer program, the companies said in a Monday (June 3) press release.

“We discovered CorServ offers distinct advantages by allowing us to better serve our customers with a variety of card products, participation in credit decisioning and options for local servicing,” Shannon Fortson, executive vice president and chief credit officer at Pinnacle Bank, said in the release.

CorServ enables banks and FinTechs to deliver and embed payment card capabilities for their customers. The company provides issuing processing and program management services for credit, debit and prepaid cards, according to the release.

In the partnership with Pinnacle Bank, the bank’s commercial customers now have better choices of credit card products, self-service interfaces for managing their cards, customizable reports that include Level 2 and 3 transaction data, virtual cards to pay vendors, spend controls and expense reporting, the release said.

In addition, Pinnacle Bank’s consumer and small business customers have a choice of cards and can set their own alerts and spend controls and receive two-way fraud text alerts, per the release.

“This partnership provides their customers with a credit card program featuring increased capabilities for a convenient and simple experience,” Anil Goyal, CEO of CorServ, said in the release. “Our comprehensive credit card products and features empower Pinnacle Bank to meet the banking needs of their customers while enabling them to compete with national credit card issuers.”

In another recently announced partnership, CorServ teamed up with California-based Avidbank to help launch a new credit card for that bank’s commercial customers.

“This collaboration aligns with our commitment to providing innovative banking solutions to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” Art Wasson, executive vice president, treasury management services at Avidbank, said at the time in a press release.

In August, Ohio-based Peoples Bank implemented CorServ’s credit card program, saying it will use CorServ’s program to take full ownership of credit card profits and losses and make credit decisions based on its in-depth knowledge of applicants.

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Live Oak Bank Launches First Embedded Banking Partnership

2024-06-03T23:26:15Z

Live Oak Bank has launched its first embedded banking partnership.

Powered by the bank’s in-house technology and a Finxact core, this offering enables software companies to directly deliver Live Oak banking products and services to their own customers, Live Oak Bank said in a Monday (June 3) press release.

For the customers of these software companies, this means they will receive banking services embedded in the software they already use, according to the release.

Live Oak’s first partner for this service is Anatomy Financial, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered financial automation solution for medical, dental, digital health and healthcare billing companies, per the release.

“Anatomy is an exciting start to our embedded banking journey to serve customers across our verticals,” James S. (Chip) Mahan III, chairman and CEO of Live Oak, said in the release.

The embedded banking solution offered by Live Oak will address unique financial challenges in the healthcare sector, such as insurance revenue that arrives weeks after a patient is seen and siloed systems that track what has been paid, Sasha King, co-founder and co-CEO of Anatomy, said in the release.

“By partnering with Live Oak Bank, we can offer unprecedented financial clarity to healthcare organizations of all sizes,” King said in the release. “We are thrilled to work with a group that shares our passion for customer centricity and innovation.”

Live Oak is a digitally focused, FDIC-insured bank that serves customers across the country, per the release.

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that embedded finance benefits consumers by allowing them to expand and personalize their interactions with their preferred brands, staying within their favorite brands’ ecosystems for a variety of interactions instead of needing to leave for another provider.

This streamlined approach also helps consumers by creating more convenient and seamless customer journeys, according to “How Nonfinancial Brands Can Benefit from Offering Embedded Financial Services,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Galileo collaboration.

In another recent development in this space, FIS said May 7 that it launched an embedded finance platform designed for use by financial institutions, businesses and software developers.

The company’s “Atelio by FIS” platform can help any company collect deposits, move money, issue cards, send invoices, fight fraud, forecast cash flows and better understand customer behavior.

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Money Magic: How Data-Driven Rewards Are Transforming Digital Payments

2024-06-04T02:24:38Z

A payment is never just a payment. Increasingly, it is a gateway into a lifelong customer relationship.

And with the recent trend across the payments landscape of financial services firms like JPMorgan Chase and PayPal creating their own ad networks that use data from user purchases, the integration of payment systems and the use of personalized data to enhance customer experience and drive loyalty is top of mind for companies looking to establish a competitive moat of repeat business.

That’s because, in the evolving digital and connected economy, the integration of payment systems and the activation of personalized data are no longer optional — they are essential for unlocking the full potential of payments and maximizing customer lifetime value.

Unintegrated payments, after all, are standalone transactions that lack connectivity with other business processes and data systems. These disjointed payments fail to provide businesses with the crucial insights needed to enhance customer experience and streamline operations. Without integration, payment data remains isolated, preventing businesses from understanding consumer behavior, preferences and spending patterns.

Driving offers to customers inside various ecosystems means using data, and accepting the digital payments that provide that data, in the right way. Effective personalization goes beyond addressing customers by their names; it involves understanding their preferences, anticipating their needs and providing relevant offers and rewards seamlessly tailored to distinct behaviors.

And leveraging payments data for ongoing personalization doesn’t just have its place in the consumer payments realm. The principles of integrated payments and personalized data, as well as the value of rewards and benefits, can increasingly be applied to B2B payments and operations.

Unlocking Better Business Relationships

By consolidating payment data with other customer information, businesses can gain valuable insights into purchasing behaviors, enabling personalized marketing and even tailored offers.

“Given the high correlation of customer satisfaction to the payment experience … Whenever there’s a transfer of payment or money, there’s an opportunity to enhance [the process] and drive a better customer experience for consumers as well as businesses,” Wally Mlynarski, head of merchant solutions and receivables at Bank of America, told PYMNTS.

The inclusion of rewards and benefits not only incentivizes timely payments and loyalty but also can add significant value to B2B transactions. By embracing these advancements, B2B businesses can improve efficiency, foster stronger partnerships and scale their operations more effectively.

“In a B2B business, the finance function itself is part of the customer experience,” Aanchal Kochhar, head of product at Capital One Trade Credit, told PYMNTS. “You can delight customers and capture more customers when underwriting is seamless, the credit process is seamless, and how money flows is seamless and with less error. There is a lot of growth potential.”

By integrating payment systems with additional services like financing options, supplier-side businesses can provide more value to their clients, making their offerings more attractive, while offering rewards such as early payment discounts can incentivize buyers to pay invoices sooner, improving supplier cash flow.

Automating payment processes and linking them with other systems also helps minimize manual entry, which in turn reduces errors and saves time for firms, boosting their operational efficiency and leverage.

Data — especially user-permissioned, receipt-level data — will have the power to change the way business is done, Banyan President Alpesh Chokshi told PYMNTS in a discussion posted Monday (June 3).

While the traditional value proposition of payment systems focused primarily on transaction speed, security and cost, the modern value calculus includes rewards and benefits as crucial elements that influence payment acceptance decisions for both smaller firms and enterprise businesses.

For small businesses, integrated payment systems with built-in rewards and loyalty programs can be game changers. These features help attract and retain customers in competitive markets by allowing firms to offer personalized discounts, track customer preferences and engage customers through loyalty rewards, thereby driving repeat business and increasing lifetime value.

Larger enterprises benefit from integrated payment systems by leveraging extensive customer data to drive sophisticated loyalty programs and personalized marketing strategies. These businesses can analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends, segment their customer base and deliver highly personalized experiences at scale.

“We talk about our loyalty program not as a cost center, but as a profit center to the business,” Rite Aid Chief Marketing Officer Jeanniey Walden told PYMNTS.

Integrated payments and the strategic use of personalized data are also pivotal in scaling digital payments.

By offering rewards and benefits, businesses can encourage the adoption of digital payment methods, which are more efficient and secure than traditional payment options. This shift not only reduces operational costs but also provides a treasure trove of data that can be used to further refine personalization strategies and enhance customer loyalty.

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Lowe’s to Pilot In-Store Mixed-Reality Experience for Kitchen Design

2024-06-03T22:08:54Z

Lowe’s is preparing to bring its Apple Vision Pro-powered kitchen design experience to its brick-and-mortar stores.

Initially launched in February for the Apple Vision Pro, which is the tech company’s mixed-reality headset, the Lowe’s Style Studio app lets viewers explore kitchen projects and design a kitchen while immersed in a virtual 3D environment, the home improvement retailer said in a Monday (June 3) press release.

In its upcoming pilot program, Lowe’s will offer this experience in stores and with the assistance of a store associate, according to the release.

The Lowe’s Style Studio: In-Store Experience will be launched at the retailer’s Charlotte, North Carolina, location June 8-12, and will then be available at its stores in North Bergen, New Jersey and Sunnyvale, California, June 22-25, per the release.

“Lowe’s has a history of breaking new ground in our industry, and being the first home improvement retailer to offer an Apple Vision Pro experience in select stores is an exciting step in our omnichannel journey,” Seemantini Godbole, executive vice president, chief digital and information officer at Lowe’s, said in the release.

In the in-store experience, customers will wear an Apple Vision Pro and use the Lowe’s Style Studio app to explore preset styles curated by Lowe’s professional designers in an immersive kitchen visualization session, according to the release.

Throughout the in-store experience, they will be guided by a Lowe’s associate during a one-on-one appointment, the release said.

Customers will be able to select materials, fixtures and appliances that fit their personal taste, choosing from nearly 80 billion design combinations, per the release. They will then be able to save their selections; share them with friends, designers or contractors; and shop the products they selected to build their real-world kitchen.

The Lowe’s Style Studio app was one of 600 new apps and games released on the same day as the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. Like some other retailers, Lowe’s aimed to take advantage of the capacity to offer consumers more interactive eCommerce journeys.

“This is a transformational moment for kitchen design,” Godbole said at the time in a press release. “Our customers can now visualize their dream kitchen in their own space, and that’s incredibly exciting.”

For all PYMNTS digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily Digital Transformation Newsletter.

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CFPB to Create Registry of Consumer Law-Breaking Nonbank Financial Companies

2024-06-03T21:52:05Z

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule to establish a registry of nonbank financial companies that have broken consumer laws and are subject to federal, state or local government or court orders.

The registry is meant to help law enforcement across the United States identify and stop repeat offenders, the agency said in a Monday (June 23) press release.

“Too many American families have been harmed by corporate repeat offenders in a rinse-and-repeat cycle of illegality, where bad actors see fines and penalties as the cost of doing business,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in prepared remarks issued Monday. “Throughout our economy, we have seen fraudsters and scam artists get caught in one part of the country and restart their scheme in a new place hoping to not get caught again.”

Currently, orders are publicly available but are not tracked, according to the press release. Unlike banks, credit unions and many mortgage companies, many other types of financial institutions are not licensed or registered.

With its new registry, the CFPB aims to help state attorneys general, state regulators and other law enforcement agencies better understand fraudsters, and to assist investors, creditors, business partners and members of the public in conducting due diligence, the release said.

Under the final rule, covered nonbank companies must register with the CFPB when they have been caught violating consumer law and must provide an attestation from a senior executive that the company follows any relevant orders, per the release.

“The registry established in today’s rule will capture agency and court orders stemming from federal, state and local enforcement actions,” Chopra said in his prepared remarks. “The registry will allow the CFPB to better identify and act on enforcement trends, identify and monitor repeat offenders, and most importantly, ensure consumers are protected from any endemic risks. The same holds true for state and local authorities.”

The CFPB initially proposed the creation of an online registry of nonbank financial lawbreakers in December 2022.

At the time, the agency said that its semi-annual report found that it had received about 872,400 complaints over the previous year, which was a 33% increase from the previous reporting period.

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Bridge Millennials Are Home Furnishings Retailers’ Best Customers

2024-06-03T21:17:49Z

As home goods retailers look to grow sales, PYMNTS Intelligence research reveals that they would be well suited to consider the needs of the bridge millennial shopper — older millennials and younger members of Gen X born in the ’80s — given that these are the consumers most likely to purchase furniture and appliances.

By the Numbers

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Online Features Driving Consumers to Shop With Brands, Retailers or Marketplaces,” created in collaboration with Adobe and based on a survey of over 3,500 U.S. consumers in October, aimed to explore the factors influencing consumers’ decisions and actions in online shopping.

Supplemental findings from the survey revealed that, when it comes to home furnishings and appliances purchases, bridge millennials lead the charge, with more than 16% having bought or paid for such an item in the last month. This share is greater than any other generation and well above the population-wide average of less than 12%. Bridge millennials were closely followed in this retail category by millennials.

A Deeper Dive

An additional PYMNTS Intelligence survey of more than 2,600 consumers last year revealed that the 53% of consumers strongly or somewhat prefer to make home furnishing product purchases in stores. In contrast, only 25% prefer to do so online.

Furniture retailers are adapting to this demand, focusing on providing immersive in-person experiences. Wayfair, for instance, recently announced the opening of its first large-format physical location.

“Our store is thoughtfully designed to be both inspirational and practical, empowering shoppers to create spaces that are just right for them,” Liza Lefkowski, the furniture retailer’s vice president of merchandising and stores, commented in a statement.

Still, eCommerce is gaining ground, with Amazon seeing its home goods business gain share, having more than doubled the size of its slice of the pie in the last few years alone.

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Retail Customers Demand Simpler Checkout Experiences

2024-06-03T20:49:51Z

Shoppers increasingly expect retailers to simplify their checkout processes, as both expert insights and surveys of consumers reveal.

In the recent PYMNTS report “What’s Next in Payments: Payments Modernization,” 15 payments and financial services executives look at the necessity of bringing payments up to date. Justin Downey, vice president of product at Maverick Payments, notes how providing more frictionless checkout experiences can be key to ensuring a positive consumer experience.

“Business that can adapt to very convenient ways for customers to pay are going to win in the long run … so staying on top of offerings for a streamlined payment and checkout approach is a heavy focus,” Downey told PYMNTS in an interview for the report.

Take eCommerce. The PYMNTS Intelligence study “The Online Features Driving Consumers to Shop With Brands, Retailers or Marketplaces,” done in collaboration with Adobe, is based on a survey in of over 3,500 U.S. consumers that explores their online shopping preferences and behaviors. The findings indicated that 50% of consumers consider the ease of a merchant’s checkout process when choosing where to shop.

“Anything that makes processes quicker and easier with less obstacles for customers, that’s where the excitement is,” Downey said.

Major retailers are innovating in this area. Marko Ivanovic, director of digital payments at Adidas, told PYMNTS in an interview last year that the footwear brand is looking to provide more frictionless payment experiences both online and in stores.

“We’re already offering a range of mobile payment methods, like Apple Pay, Google Pay and WeChat Pay. We also launched PayPal in stores. For us, it’s members first, one-click checkout, especially for the young generations that do everything with their mobile,” Ivanovic said.

The 2022 report “Building A Better Online Checkout Experience: The Key Features That Matter To Customers,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Checkout.com collaboration, found that two-thirds of consumers say that having a satisfying checkout experience is very or extremely influential on their willingness to shop with a merchant again. Plus, the most common pain point during online transactions that consumers experience, the study found, is a frustrating checkout process.

Yet a shorter path to purchase is not always better. In an interview with PYMNTS, Sean Knotts, the director of global eCommerce at Sonos, said the audio equipment company has been redesigning the cart and checkout processes to meet consumers’ expectations of a digital journey that shows that it takes seriously their high-value purchases.

“We ran … some user testing, and that indicated that actually moving away from the very ubiquitous single-page checkout flow to a three-step design, which … used to be the industry norm, was actually 4% easier for users to navigate,” Knotts said, noting that adding these steps helped consumers trust the process.

As consumer expectations continue to evolve, the emphasis on a seamless checkout experience is more crucial than ever for retailers. Insights from industry experts and comprehensive consumer surveys underscore the necessity for businesses to adapt and modernize their payment processes. By prioritizing ease of checkout and incorporating customer feedback, retailers can not only enhance user satisfaction but also foster long-term loyalty in an increasingly competitive market.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

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Sam Bankman-Fried to Remain in Brooklyn Prison to Prepare Appeal

2024-06-03T20:30:39Z

Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly back in a prison in Brooklyn after the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) began moving him to a facility in California, the state in which his parents live.

Judge Lewis Kaplan asked that the BOP hold Bankman-Fried in Brooklyn until his appeal “has been fully briefed,” and a spokesman for Bankman-Fried said his client appreciates the BOP’s resolution of the matter, Bloomberg reported Monday (June 3).

The BOP had transported Bankman-Fried to a prison in Oklahoma May 23, apparently as a temporary stop on his way to California, according to the report.

The agency then moved him to a Pennsylvania facility last week before returning him to New York, the report said.

Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and Alameda Research, to 25 years in prison in March.

The sentencing followed Bankman-Fried’s conviction on all counts in November, with the charges spanning four categories: fraud on FTX customers; fraud on FTX’s investors; fraud on Alameda’s lenders; and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“At the end of the day, the criminal justice system thrives only if it’s seen as fair,” Kaplan said when announcing the sentencing. “People need to feel it is fair, or we’re back to trial by combat. The punishment must fit the seriousness of the crime. And this was a serious crime.”

Bankman-Fried appealed his conviction and the sentence in April, launching what could be a yearslong process in pursuing the appeal.

On Tuesday (May 28), the former CEO of FTX’s Bahamas subsidiary, Ryan Salame, became the first of Bankman-Fried’s close associates to be sentenced for charges relating to the collapse of FTX and its affiliated companies.

Salame was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison by a U.S. judge after pleading guilty to campaign finance law violations and operating an unlicensed money transmitter.

Three other executives affiliated with FTX and its companies — FTX Co-founder Gary Wang, Chief Engineer Nishad Singh and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison — pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors during the trial of Bankman-Fried in hopes of receiving lighter sentences.

They could be sentenced later this year.

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Mexican Consumers Seek More Payments Choice and Product Details

2024-06-04T01:52:44Z

Consumers around the world want to access specific digital features when shopping, whether they are perusing aisle 3 or clicking from their couch at home. PYMNTS Intelligence recently investigated this topic in our “2024 Global Digital Shopping Index,” a series of reports commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions that identify which features resonate in various corners of the globe.

In the Mexico Edition of the index, we found that nearly half of consumers shop in-store without using any digital shopping features. But it’s not because they prefer it that way; it’s because merchants in Mexico aren’t providing the features shoppers want. Sixty-two percent of local consumers are looking for digital features that are not yet available there.

But as PYMNTS Intelligence found, merchants there recognize this and are now hard at work trying to address this digital deficit.

The reason shoppers in Mexico want digital shopping features is because often they enable consumers to save money and improve their overall in-store experience. In other words — just like we found when studying consumer behavior in Brazil, the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere — these local shoppers also enjoy enhancing their brick-and-mortar shopping adventures with digital features: an approach to buying our research calls Click-and-Mortar shopping.

Across our series of reports, we found that when merchants facilitate Click-and-Mortar behavior, customers report higher levels of shopping satisfaction. And in practice, this means merchants in Mexico have dual opportunity to step up their game by both adding new digital features and making sure the existing ones they offer can be more easily found.

Several demographic groups are driving the demand for digital features in Mexico’s retail landscape. Forty-two percent of parents say they would appreciate the savings and convenience digital features can offer. Millennials and Generation Z shoppers in Mexico also show a propensity towards integrating technology into their shopping experiences.

So, which digital features are consumers in Mexico most excited about? As the figure illustrates, approximately three-fourths of Mexican consumers appreciate flexible payment options first and foremost, but nearly as many value information. Seventy-two percent of retail shoppers and 74% of grocery buyers want product details. Product reviews are nearly as important: 70% of retail shoppers and 67% of grocery shoppers want access to product reviews.

While Mexican merchants should focus on delivering a variety of flexible payment options to their customers, they shouldn’t overlook the importance of providing them with authentic product details and other information. Doing so will drive the Click-and-Mortar experiences that consumers are looking for, which in turn can help enhance customer satisfaction.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

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