Blackboard’s payments platform, Cashnet, recently won the 2018 Innovation and Excellence Award sponsored by the New England Automated Clearing House (NEACH). The NEACH 2018 Innovation and Excellence Awards showcase outstanding payments products and services to the financial industry and beyond.

Payments via standard debit and credit cards, as well as payments via mobile device have posed a significant foe to the campus cards at the vending machine. In our 2016 coverage of the topic, we examined the role that campus vending plays in the open-loop vs. closed-loop debate.

North Carolina State University is making changes to its campus card, the Wolfpack OneCard, with students, faculty and staff able to get their hands on the new credential this June. Among the changes is the ability for campus card holders to use their ID for debit transactions if they have a PNC Bank account.

Denmark’s Copenhagen Business School will be one of the first institutions in the world to enable students to make purchases in a restaurant and coffee shop using only their finger.

The Student Services department at Arkansas State is backing an initiative that’s asking fellow students to donate unused flex dollars to the A-State Food Pantry. Flex dollars at Arkansas State are funds loaded onto student ID cards that can be used at any dining location or participating store on campus.

The National University of Singapore laid out plans to make its campus entirely cashless, but following student backlash and petitioning university officials have now scaled back the cashless plans.

In a continually expanding campus market, students, faculty and staff expect payment acceptance and a consistent customer experience across all points of interaction. With today’s omni-channel technologies, universities and their supporting communities can deliver this experience while monetizing their payment ecosystems for greater revenues.

New York’s Binghampton University has agreed terms with Visions Federal Credit Union to be the university’s on-campus bank branch beginning in July, ending a more than 20-year relationship with previous partner M&T Bank.