Payments


Shoptalk: Payments Change Breeds Excitement, Confusion

With excitement often comes confusion, and that was true Tuesday at the Shoptalk conference in Las Vegas, where executives offered an optimistic view of the future of commerce and payments, albeit a vision that carried more than a bit of uncertainty.

Shoptalk: New Ways to Pay, Attract Millennials

At Shoptalk in Las Vegas this week, young companies showcased their contributions to the evolution of commerce and experts discussed how retailers and payments providers can attract the coveted millennial shopper.

Fitbit Nabs Wearables Tech, Staff from Coin

Fitbit Inc. is acquiring the wearable payments platform of startup Coin, with an eye on developing contactless payment features for future Fitbit fitness bands. The deal includes “key personnel and intellectual property” related to Coin’s wearables business, but does not include Coin’s core product—an electronic smart card that can be loaded with multiple payment, gift or loyalty cards, Fitbit said.

SEC Chair Tabs Cybercrime as Biggest Threat to Financial System

SEC head Mary Jo White called cybercrime the biggest threat to the world’s financial markets. Speaking at the Reuters Financial Regulation Summit in Washington, D.C., this week, White said that some major financial exchanges, dark pools and clearing houses lack defenses that are up to the challenge presented by today’s increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals.

Android Pay now in the UK; Australia and Singapore are next

Android Pay is now available in the UK, and more countries are on the way. Banking Technology first reported on this initiative in March this year. UK consumers can now pay for goods and services with their Android smartphones. Retailers like Boots, Waitrose and Starbucks are already onboard, and so is Transport for London (underground, […]

MCX Delays CurrentC, Shifts Focus to FI Partnerships

Retailer consortium MCX said it will postpone the rollout of its CurrentC mobile payments service and shift its focus to partnering with financial institutions. Results from its pilot in Columbus, Ohio, led to the strategy move as well as the decision to cut about 30 jobs.

PayNearMe Scores Deal with Dallas Transit

PayNearMe is enabling Dallas commuters to pay transit fares in cash at nearly 800 retail locations through a partnership with Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). Fares can be loaded onto the existing DART GoPass app or the new DART GoPass card, the transit agency’s first reloadable NFC-enabled transit card designed and distributed by PayNearMe and Blackhawk Network.

Shoptalk: Payments Execs Focus More on Check-In than Checkout

Can you imagine a world where check-in matters more than checkout when it comes to payments? Some of world’s leading payment experts can, and their ideas, presented this week at the Shoptalk conference in Las Vegas, foreshadow how consumers might buy products in the coming years.

NICE’s robotic automation solution gets the Italian jobs

Italy’s Banca Popolare di Sondrio and Helpline have implemented NICE’s Robotic Automation solutions for loan approvals and credit card fraud prevention. Banca Popolare di Sondrio, which has 350 branches across the country, decided to implement NICE Robotics to speed up its online loan and credit approvals process. As a result, NICE says average handle time […]

Infographics: the efficient treasury

The treasury function plays a pivotal role within a bank, and with great power comes great responsibility… and the need for automation. Misys and Banking Technology conducted a survey to find out about the changing role of the banks’ treasury and the degree of support received from current systems. How can technology help treasurers cope […]

Green Dot Agrees to Split CEO, Chairman Role amid Proxy Fight

A week from its 2016 annual shareholder meeting, Green Dot has announced plans to split up the role of chairman and CEO. The move comes in the midst of Green Dot’s proxy battle over board seats, propelled by Harvest Capital, which owns 9.3 percent of Green Dot common stock and has proposed three nominees to the board.

Walmart Pay Rolls out in Texas, Arkansas

Five months after unveiling its own in-store mobile payment service, Walmart has begun rolling out Walmart Pay in Texas and the retail giant’s home state of Arkansas. Available through the Walmart smartphone app for iOS and Android, Walmart Pay can be loaded with any major credit, debit or prepaid card or a Walmart gift card.

Sen. Durbin Wants Answers on EMV Terminal Certification Delays

More than seven months after last October’s EMV liability shift in the U.S., customers “are forced to continue using fraud-prone magnetic stripe technology” because chip-reading payment terminals remain idle, charged U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin in a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Edith Ramirez.

VocaLink signs ATM deal with UnionPay

VocaLink, the payment systems provider, has signed a five-year deal with China’s UnionPay International, which will enable UnionPay cardholders to access ATMs in the UK and continental Europe. Under the deal, VocaLink will provide ATM transaction processing and UnionPay sponsored access. VocaLink says on average, the value of UnionPay card withdrawals from UK ATMs are […]

Swift warns of second new malware threat

Swift has warned its customers about a newly identified malware found at a “commercial bank”, which it has declined to identify. This latest development follows yesterday’s (12 May) news where Swift rejected the allegations made by Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials about the first cyber fraud scandal in February. Details […]

Infographics: the efficient treasury

Banking Technology and Misys conducted a survey to find out about the changing role of the banks’ treasury and the degree of support received from current systems. The results are in our infographics – great contents that is easy on the eye and easy to digest.

Barclays swerves Android Pay with smartphone NFC payments

Banking giant Barclays has announced the launch of its own mobile contactless on Android, and confirmed it will not be joining Android Pay, reports Tim Skinner at Telecoms.com. The bank has been one of the UK’s more innovative financial institutions harnessing mobile payments, and specifically the integration of payment technology into wearable or alternative devices. […]

Blackhawk: Mobile Wallets Gain as Cash and Check Usage Falls

A Blackhawk Network study finds that more consumers (44 percent) are buying gift cards for themselves, most consumers are familiar with digital gift cards and other innovative payment methods are catching steam, while checks and even cash are declining.

Walmart Sues Visa over Debit Verification Rules

Walmart has filed a lawsuit against Visa Inc. over claims that the payment network is forcing Walmart to offer customers the option to verify EMV debit card purchases via signature—a method the retail giant says is more prone to fraud than PIN verification.

Banking Technology May 2016 issue out now

The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.

Swift quick to dismiss Bangladesh’s allegations over cyber fraud scandal

Swift has rejected the allegations made by Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials to Reuters about the cyber fraud scandal in February. A few months ago, hackers stole more than $100 million from the country’s foreign currency reserves. In the ensuing furore, the head of Bangladesh’s central bank, Atiur Rahman, resigned; […]

Company on the Move: TOC, FIDO Alliance

Chilean biometrics company TOC has joined the FIDO Alliance, the association aiming to develop global standards for online authentication based on methods that are more secure than simple passwords.

Cloud nine for UK start-up AccessPay with £1m Barclays backing

Barclays is providing £1 million in funding to UK-based AccessPay to support its growth and further develop their relationship. Access Systems (trading as AccessPay) provides a cloud-based connectivity layer between a business’s finance systems, their banks and “all of the major” UK and international payment networks such as BACS, Swift, SEPA, Faster Payments and Direct […]

PSD II: the devil is in the detail

There’s a devilish amount of detail in the Payment Services Directive II (PSD II) and those responsible for implementing its requirements at financial institutions are only just now beginning to realise it. At last month’s Swift business forum in London, Emily Reid, partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, joked that payments regulation was a “growth […]

Vendor spotlight: the difference engine

Amidst the mass of humanity at Money 20/20 Europe in Copenhagen, Olivier Sery, general manager Iberia for TAS Group, took a few moments of his time to discuss the company’s software solutions for electronic money and payment systems; and its future plans. “We’ve done the investment, but now is the time to grow our footprint.” […]

CFSI Study Cites Key Indicators of Financial Health

Forget traditional measures like credit scores and net worth. A new report from the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) identifies eight key indicators that it says provide a better understanding of consumers’ financial health that can help financial services providers and nonprofits design products and services to help consumers get ahead.

Apple Pay Expands in Canada

The mobile payment service, once confined to American Express cardholders, now is available to MasterCard, Visa and Interac customers. Apple has signed deals with four banks for Apple Pay.

Can Password Manager Dashlane Race ahead in Wallet Wars?

Dashlane, a password manager with offices in New York City and Paris, announced on May 9 that its digital wallet has surpassed $5 billion in online consumer spending. Could this digital identity company become a leader in the wallet wars?

Groupon Sells M-POS Arm to Upserve

The sale of the unit to the restaurant management technology company comes amid financial woes for Groupon. The deal makes Upserve the industry’s largest cloud-based restaurant management platform, serving more than 6,000 restaurants in every U.S. state, according to the company.

Int’l Regulatory Roundup: Pakistan Issues Prepaid Rule; SEQR Lands E-Money License

The State Bank of Pakistan has issued new prepaid card regulations in a bid to promote prepaid for financial inclusion and enhanced security. Meanwhile, Stockholm-based mobile payment specialist Seamless Distribution AB has been granted an e-money issuing license by Sweden’s financial supervisory authority for its SEQR mobile wallet.

The Increasing Role of the Banks’ Treasury

The world of the banks’ treasury is changing. Treasurers are getting more involved with corporate governance, risk management and regulatory reporting. In this webinar, we will discuss the latest results of a survey run by Banking Technology with more than 100 treasurers earlier this year and discuss the implications of these results with treasurers, other […]

Dwolla offers FiSync platform to US Fed’s faster payments plan

US payments start-up Dwolla has submitted its FiSync platform as part of its faster payments proposal to the Federal Reserve-chartered Faster Payment Task Force. The Fed-chartered initiative, comprised of over 500 Faster and Secure Payments Task Force members, has been tasked with representing, addressing, and assessing “improved” payments systems. Dwolla is offering FiSync, a communication […]

Green Dot’s Strong Q1 Doesn’t Silence Harvest

Green Dot’s positive financial results for the first quarter of the year included growth in the prepaid segment, the launch of the company’s revamped MonkeyPak reload product and several new partnerships. But the company’s strong quarter wasn’t enough to silence its loudest critic, as activist investor Harvest Capital sends yet another letter to shareholders blasting what it calls Green Dot’s “smear campaign” against its board of director nominees.