 |  TOP STORIES YOU MISSED | Featured Stories | | |   | Ant Financial announced initiatives to help businesses in China as lockdowns end Ant Financial’s digital payment platform is adding a number of services to help small businesses in the city of Wuhan as its lockdown ends, per a press release. It’s adding a section to its app to highlight products and services and enable ordering from merchants in Wuhan. Some merchants in the city that are on the platform can also apply for loans with no interest rate for the first month. Additionally, Alipay is offering free training courses for employees like cashiers and store managers to teach them how to best use Alipay’s platform, and it’s incentivizing service providers to create digital solutions to help merchants operate. China’s retail sales plummeted this year due to the pandemic, and initiatives like these could help some merchants get back on their feet. By helping merchants and service providers recover, Alipay can potentially build toward its aim of becoming a digital lifestyle platform. Payments and commerce platforms in other markets should keep an eye on Alipay’s efforts to help develop their own initiatives once the pandemic subsides. |
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|   | Instacart added two features that should increase its capacity to fulfill orders The grocery delivery service introduced two features to help it meet the 300% annual increase in customer demand it’s seeing due to the coronavirus pandemic, per a company blog post. These efforts are likely meant to ensure that consumers who want to place an order can do so — something customers of online grocery services have been struggling with in some cases. Its new “Fast & Flexible” delivery option broadens delivery windows, allowing Instacart to more efficiently fulfill orders. This option gives customers a delivery window of several days instead of a singular time and day. Instacart is also extending its Order Ahead feature so customers can place orders up to two weeks in advance. Previously, customers could only make orders a week in advance, and the new option will be rolling out across North America in the coming weeks. |
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|   | US fintech SoFi plans to acquire payments technology firm Galileo for $1.2 billion The US fintech is set to purchase the payments technology company for $1.2 billion in cash and stock, according to CNBC. The merger, which comes amid the coronavirus pandemic, was reportedly already in talks before the pandemic worsened and follows a wave of payments and fintech mergers and acquisitions, per TechCrunch. Galileo will continue to operate as an independent division within SoFi, which plans to leverage the acquisition to diversify its revenue and open the doors to more business-to-business (B2B) efforts. For Galileo, the acquisition comes after a massive funding round and the launch of an issuer-processor offering that propelled it into the spotlight, but it could also weaken its client relationships. |
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