Houzz now enables residential contractors and design professionals to quickly collect electronic payments in person.
The company has equipped Houzz Pro, its platform for home remodeling and design, with a Tap to Pay feature that turns iPhones into point of sale (POS) devices, Houzz said in a Tuesday (April 25) press release.
“Builders, remodelers and designers have told us that they need to process everything from retainers and deposits to change orders more quickly to keep projects running smoothly,” Houzz Co-Founder and President Alon Cohen said in the release. “Tap to Pay enables pros to conveniently accept payment in person.”
Tap to Pay continues to be widely embraced by consumers.
For example, Visa reported Tuesday (April 25) that 34% of all face-to-face transactions in the United States are now Tap to Pay. That’s up 10% from last year and 700% from three years ago.
Outside the U.S., the percentage of face-to-face transactions that are Tap to Pay now stands at 74%, according to Visa.
PYMNTS research has found that merchants are aware of consumers’ spiking interest in digital payments and fear that a failure to meet this demand will harm business.
In fact, more than 75% of merchants said consumers would be at least very likely to switch merchants because retailers are not providing enough modern capabilities, including alternative payment methods, according to “Retail Payments Innovation Year in Review: How Real-Time Payments Drive the In-Store Customer Journey,” a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration.
Houzz’s new Tap to Pay feature joins the company’s other solutions that allow pros to accept payment in the field or at their desk via credit card, debit card and ACH transfers, and that enable a centralized view of cash flow across projects, according to the press release.
When using Tap to Pay, pros open an invoice in Houzz Pro, choose a scheduled payment, select “Collect Payment” and then tap their iPhone to the client’s contactless credit card, debit card or smartphone to accept the charge, the release said.
“Since the tool is integrated directly into Houzz Pro, it also contributes to greater visibility into a pro’s overall cash flow as they schedule, collect and track payments across all projects in one place,” Cohen said in the release.
In its fourth-quarter results released Tuesday (Jan. 21), financial institution KeyCorp, noted growth in its deposits. Management stated on a conference call with analysts that growth opportunities lie within embedded banking offerings.
Earnings supplementals show that overall average deposits were $149.7 billion in the most recent quarter, up from $145.1 billion last year and 1.3% higher than the third-quarter’s levels. The company noted growth in both consumer and commercial deposits.
Drilling down a bit, the supplementals indicated that credit card charge-offs were 4.5%.
During the conference call with analysts, CEO Christopher Gorman said: “Non-performing assets are peaking, and assuming the macro environment remains constructive for the balance of the year, we expect non-performing loans to begin to decline by midyear.”
Within the consumer segment, said the CEO, the company grew its number of “relationship households in excess of 3% for the second consecutive year, including growth of 5-8% throughout our Western markets. In our Eastern markets, we continue to grow households.”
Gorman took note of commercial payments-related revenues, which grew in the mid-single digit percentage points.
“Over the last decade, payments has been an area of focus and an area of consistent investment,” he said. “We were one of the first banks to build embedded banking capabilities. We will continue to develop our differentiated platform with plans to invest in additional software advisors and relationship bankers, enhanced digital and analytics tools, while concurrently continuing to invest in embedded banking.”
CFO Clark Khayat said on the call that looking ahead, average loans will be down 2-5% with year end 2025 balances flat to where they ended 2024.
Investors sent the shares lower by 4% in intraday trading on Tuesday.
During the Q&A session with analysts, CEO Gorman stated: “We’ve worked really hard to get our balance sheet to a more resilient place here. We believe today we’re fairly neutral in rates, and we can effectively manage through a variety of rate environment.”
Asked about the lending environment, management noted that a survey of middle-market clients revealed that 80% of those enterprises are confident in their growth prospects as they eye making investments in property, plants and equipment.
Elsewhere, Gorman stated: “People think that the regulatory environment is going to improve … With the regulatory environment around M&A … it’s been very challenging to get deals approved, and I’m not speaking of the banking sector. I’m speaking of our M&A business. And I think there’ll be a pretty significant unlock there.”
Offering further insight into investment roadmaps, Gorman said that, with respect to the ongoing migration to the cloud, “every year, we’ve replaced 2 core systems to the point now where we only have a couple … We will continue to invest in the business. We’ll continue to hire groups of people. We’ll also continue to look at what I call bolt-on acquisitions.
“Consumer lending is an important element to the balance sheet,” he added. “We’re not at the moment leaning into that, but I would expect that we will do so over time,” including further moves into personal lending.