PYMNTS AM Radar: Digitizing Collections; Need for Speed; New Wave Health; ICYMI

Welcome to Wednesday, May 18. Deal or no deal? Elon Musk is still insisting on more transparency before moving forward with his Twitter buy, but now the social platform is turning the tables and saying they might force the sale. Here’s what else should be on your radar this morning.

Digitizing Collections: Digital payments are integral to consumer satisfaction as well as bill payment and collection. In the PYMNTS report The Digital Payments Edge: How Consumer Finance Companies Can Succeed In The Payment Processing Revolution, done in collaboration with ACI Worldwide, 86% of collection executives said that digitizing processes will make bill collections faster. READ MORE

Need for Speed: There is a duality to the payments system in that a great experience must be delivered with both ease and speed, Onbe CEO Bala Janakiraman told PYMNTS. Faster payments, however, are still a work in progress; paper checks comprised 40% of payments as of the second quarter of this year. READ MORE

New Wave Health: The pivot to virtual healthcare spurred by the pandemic is one digital aspect that will carry on permanently — not just a contactless, cost-saving method, but also as a quicker, easy, safer one, says Thomas Grellner, CEO at German MedTech startup Smedo. Digital care frees up work hours for over-burdened medical staff and can also detect health issues before problems become a major diagnosis. READ MORE

ICYMI: Social media site Instagram is hosting a two-day physical retail pop-up shop in Manhattan to mark the three-year anniversary of its @shop account. The shop will run on Friday (May 20) and Saturday (May 21) at Chelsea Triangle and will feature some of the most popular products featured in the @shop listings. People can browse and buy. READ MORE