Banks need to show courage and radically change their traditional mindsets about payments if they are to deal with start-ups threatening to snatch a share of the spoils. This was one of the messages from Payments International in London – a four-day conference of panel debates, Q&A and presentations – that runs 15-18 November. It’s […]
Mobile commerce is on the rise—and as the busy holiday shopping season nears, now is a key time for retailers to examine how they can improve their brand’s efforts around m-commerce. Discover offers insights into how retailers can use the mobile channel to market their offerings and drive engagement and sales.
There is little doubt that there is some very innovative work being carried out in the payments world. Digital technologies, including distributed ledger and artificial intelligence, are beginning to be applied to retail and corporate payments. But in the age of digital finance, a dinosaur of payments – cheques – persist.
More than 3.6 million personal records, including card data, are stolen every day, according to the Breach Level Index, and fraudsters are hard at work to use that data to their advantage. The latest report from IDology highlights fraud trends, while InComm, Tender Armor and Intellicheck have announced initiatives to keep the fraudsters at bay.
Plastic will stand as the gift of choice for many consumers this holiday season, with 81 percent of shoppers saying that up to half their gifts this year could be gift cards, according to a new survey from Blackhawk Network, one of two recent reports that paints a picture of how consumers are likely to spend in the all-important fourth quarter.
With India’s recent abolition of some high-denomination paper currency already driving an uptick in electronic payments, Mastercard is bringing a QR code-based version of its Masterpass mobile payments service to the country. Launched in partnership with Ratnakar Bank Limited (RBL), Masterpass QR enables users to make in-store payments via scan of a QR code displayed on a smartphone.
OP Bank, Nordea and Danske Bank have launched a new real-time, multibank mobile payments platform in Finland. The platform was built by Tieto and Automatia (the latter operates the three banks’ shared ATM network).
Payment services provider Total Merchant Services has been named to Fortune’s Best Medium Workplaces list, taking the No. 8 spot in the rankings.
UK-based payments vendor Monitise has launched its Finkit partner programme with founding partner MasterCard to speed up collaboration in banking and payments. For the “first time”, the founding partners – which also include BehavioSec, Currencycloud, Envestnet | Yodlee, Experian, Fastacash, FICO, HID, iGeolise, LivePerson, Mypinpad, Syniverse and WorldFirst – have agreed to make their capabilities […]
Prepaid providers are no strangers to balance alerts. But new research suggests that financial institutions can go further with alerts and push notifications to strengthen relationships with customers and increase revenue.
Visa hopes to spread the use of biometrics authentication by developing a mobile app that enables the use of multiple biometrics markers. The idea behind the technology, which Visa says it’s creating with BioConnect, is that if a consumer’s default biometric fails to work for some reason, the app will allow that person to use another such marker. For instance, a person’s fingers might be too damp to allow fingerprint access into a device, so the app might then enable voice recognition.
Heeding the advice of many payments experts who say mobile wallets need to do more than enable payments, Samsung has launched a points-based rewards program for Samsung Pay. Consumers using the mobile wallet for purchases can earn points from those transactions and then use those points to buy Samsung products and vouchers, along with gift cards and value that can be transferred to the Samsung Rewards Visa prepaid card.
A group of financial services and telecom providers has banded together to launch a new mobile payment service to help increase electronic payments in Nigeria. Known as mCASH, the platform is a joint venture of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, numerous Nigerian deposit banks and the country’s four main telecom providers: Etisalat, MTN, Airtel and Globacom.
SETL, Deloitte and Metro Bank say they have completed “a series of firsts”. SETL provided a contactless smartcard for digitised payments (based on blockchain), Deloitte applied its Smart Identity blockchain ID system, and Metro Bank hosted a connected client account.
OCBC says it is the first bank in Southeast Asia to use blockchain for local and cross-border interbank fund transfers. A successful pilot payment transaction was carried out between the bank and its subsidiaries, OCBC Malaysia and Bank of Singapore, using a payment blockchain solution designed by OCBC and local payments firm BCS Information Systems […]
Indications continue to be positive for gift card sales this holiday season, with a recent report coming from Mercator Advisory Group predicting a bounce-back year from 2015, and research from the UK Gift Card & Voucher Association highlighting the popularity of digital gift cards, regardless of season.
The Federal Trade Commission has charged NetSpend with deceiving cardholders and denying or delaying their access to funds, but the prepaid provider says any delays stem from federal regulations and that consumers are not being deceived.
Financial services provider J.G. Wentworth Co.’s new Give Some! Play Some! Gift Card combines a $20 virtual Visa gift card with a $5 scratch-off lottery ticket—discounted to $3—included as part of the purchase.
Vantiv, which sells payment processing services and technology, said that it will pay $425 million to buy U.S.-based merchant acquirer Moneris Solutions Inc. from Moneris Solutions Corp., which is headquartered in Canada.
V-Key, a Singapore-based digital security firm, and Ant Financial have teamed up for mobile payments. Under the partnership, V-Key will provide its virtual software solution, V-OS, for Ant Financial to help secure transactions on AliExpress, one of Alibaba Group’s retail ecommerce platforms. (Ant Financial is an affiliate company of Alibaba Group). V-Key will also provide […]
Our new series of thrillers – produced and directed by CustomerXPs and Banking Technology – narrate the tales of the fight between the forces of good (the Clari5 analytics and anti-fraud software) and the forces of evil. Based on real events and guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat!
US banking giant Citi is launching its own branded mobile wallet – Citi Pay – to take on rivals such as Android Pay, Samsung Pay and PayPal.
Cuscal, a major payments provider to Australia’s credit unions and smaller banks, has signed a deal with Apple to bring Apple Pay to its customers. The service will be available to nearly four million Australians that bank with 31 entities (which work with Cuscal).
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Steve Streit, CEO of Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot, hailed the third quarter as another strong one for the company, pointing to operating revenue, adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share improving on quarter-by-quarter and year-over-year bases. He also highlighted several Green Dot products and services.
The recent surge of bank-backed mobile wallets continues, with Citi the latest financial institution to announce it’s getting into the game. The bank on Nov. 10 unveiled its Citi Pay app, which will enable customers to make online and mobile purchases using their Citi card accounts via Mastercard’s Masterpass digital payments service.
Electronic payments providers in India are celebrating the Indian government’s abolition of the Rs 500 ($7.46) and Rs 1,000 ($14.92) currency notes, which went into effect Nov. 8, because it’s driving transactions to their platforms.
As an online retailer heading into the holidays with approximately $105 billion in sales up for grabs, competing for spend is a top priority.
PayPal is bringing its users “an early holiday present” – the integration of Siri into PayPal.
The recently published Chambers UK 2017 legal ratings recognized several Locke Lord LLP lawyers as leading practitioners in their respective practice areas and recognized two of the firm’s U.K. practice areas for excellence.
Parth Desai, CEO and founder of Pelican, discusses why artificial intelligence (AI) is already fact not a fantasy, but cautions that we need to be realistic about what can really be achieved on the journey to true AI adoption in transaction banking and payments.
With a victory that took the pollsters by surprise, Trump’s win sent the markets plummeting overnight. Although reports suggest markets are steadying, what’s in store for the U.S. payments and financial services industry in the wake of this election?
Prison cards are under fire again, this time in Arizona. Bank of America has been named in a proposed class action lawsuit over claims the bank charged excessive fees on prepaid cards issued to former prison inmates in the state.
Fintech companies and challenger banks in the U.K. have a new tool for targeting consumers without traditional banking relationships. Prepaid card issuer Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd., a subsidiary of Wirecard AG, is working with payments processor GPS and Bottomline Technologies to support a digital banking solution called “U,” which was designed by U.K. program manager FFF Ltd.
Visa-backed mobile payments will expand in Africa thanks to a deal with pan-African banking group Ecobank. The agreement follows a similar one the bank struck with Mastercard in 2014.
Intelligent Processing Solutions (iPSL), a UK-based cheque clearing firm owned by Unisys, plans to close down seven of its nine locations in 2018. This puts 600 jobs at risk, according to trade union Unite.
UK-based banking services challenger Ffrees Fiamily Finance has launched a new “digital agency banking solution” – U Account. The account is supported by Wirecard, Global Processing Services (GPS) and payments software vendor Bottomline Technologies.
From payments robots to data analytics and customer engagement, find out what got FIS payments execs excited at Money20/20.
Soldo, a London-based fintech start-up, is launching its flagship multi-user spending account. Soldo is not a bank, but a prepaid MasterCard. It holds an e-money licence from the UK’s regulator, FCA.
Sparebank 1, an alliance of 16 Norwegian savings banks, has extended the contract with incumbent software supplier Evry. The agreement represents total contract value of NOK 3 billion ($364 million) over a six-year period.
