Shift4 Payments launched Shift4Cares.com, an online resource for government agencies, news outlets and businesses affected by COVID-19. The website offers information on the economic impact of the pandemic and is part of the payment processing solutions company’s initiative to raise more than $200 million for businesses—including up to $10 million contributed directly from Shift4.
The website provides consumers with the opportunity to support hospitality businesses affected by the pandemic by purchasing gift cards, with Shift4 contributing an additional 5 percent of the amount spent to each merchant.
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“While COVID-19 is impacting every aspect of the economy, restaurants and other hospitality businesses have been hit especially hard,” Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Payments, said in a statement. “As a company that serves the small business community, Shift4 wants to do everything in our power to help support these merchants. This is why we are kicking off this campaign to put over $200 million back into these businesses during this critical time,”
Shift4 regularly processes more than 3.5 billion transactions annually for more than 200,000 businesses across the United States, representing more than $200 billion in payments each year. Using this data, the company has been able to assess the impact of COVID-19 on business communities across the country.
Data on the site for the last seven days shows that hospitality industry transactions are down significantly when compared to the week of Feb. 2, with hotels, specifically, down 86 percent. While the impact has been felt across the country, the states leading the declines are California (91 percent), Pennsylvania (89 percent), Texas (89 percent) and New York (88 percent). Nationally, hotel transactions declined from 144 million to 20 million. Nationwide and state-by-state data is available on the Shift4Cares.com website.