GasBuddy Unveils Payment Service with WEX
GasBuddy, a smartphone app helping nearly 70 million drivers find the best gas prices, has unveiled Pay with GasBuddy, a new payment service in partnership with WEX that provides U.S. drivers with discounts.
Mobile
McDonald’s Taps Capgemini for Digital Push; Burger King Unveils Whoppercoin in Russia
Do you want fries with that? France-based Capgemini is likely to hear that phrase a lot more now that it’s signed a multiyear IT strategic provider agreement with McDonald’s Corp. Meanwhile, Burger King Russia is jumping on the cryptocurrrency bandwagon.
Mastercard pumps up payments with Fitbit’s first smartwatch
Mastercard is bringing its contactless payments to Fitbit’s first smartwatch, Fitbit Ionic.
NCR Takes Bigger Bite of Restaurant Business
NCR is hungry for more restaurant business, announcing its third such partnership in the last month. The Duluth, Ga.-based company is working with Performance Food Group to offer its NCR Silver cloud-based, point-of-sale solution to a new group of independent restaurants.
Bridg Raises $11 Million from Morpheus Ventures, March Capital, Visa and NextEquity
Bridg, which claims to be the first marketing software company to leverage point-of-sale data to drive “precision-marketing campaigns” for restaurant and retail brands, has secured $11 million in Series B funding.
Blockchain Roundup: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Nations, platforms and some bad news in our latest blockchain and bitcoin roundup. Find out more about the SEC’S suspension of First Bitcoin Capital Corp., an initial coin offering for cryptocurrency exchange platform KyberNetwork and more.
Digiliti Money and Urban FT in “advanced” acquisition talks
Prospective buyer Urban FT Inc. confirmed on Aug. 25 that it’s in “advanced negotiations” with Digitili Money regarding a “potential transaction that will see DGLT stave off potential bankruptcy proceedings.”
Alipay Buzz Continues with Starbucks Deal
Alipay is zipping along in terms of its international expansion. With its latest partnership, the world’s largest online and mobile payment platform operated by Ant Financial Services Group, is now available for Mainland Chinese tourists at all 242 Starbucks branches across Malaysia.
Top 5 Best Challenger Banks: Varo Money
“There’s a reason that the bank of the future hasn’t been created yet—it’s extremely difficult,” says Top 5 Best Challenger Bank Varo Money. See if you think they’ve got what it takes to rise to the challenge.
Banking Technology Awards entry deadline extended
Due to high volume of requests, the deadline to enter Banking Technology Awards is being extended. The final chance to enter the Awards is now Friday, 8 September 2017. Nominate projects, products, services or partnerships for a Judged Award or tell us about inspirational people by nominating them for a Leadership Award. Full details on […]
Guatemalan co-operative network selects Temenos core banking platform
Guatemala-based Federacion Nacional de Cooperativas de Ahorro y Credito (Fenacoac) has selected Temenos‘ RetailSuite core banking platform for its 25 co-operatives that operate under the brand Micoope. RetailSuite is the brand name for a variety of Temenos products, and includes the T24 core banking system and the business intelligence offering, Insight BI. Banking Technology understands […]
Juniper predicts major global shift to contactless on heels of US EMV push
A new study from Juniper Research is forecasting that more than half (53%) of global transactions at the point of sale will be contactless within five years, compared with just 15% this year, reports Banking Technology‘s sister publication Paybefore. The new research, “POS & mPOS Terminals: Vendor Strategies, Positioning & Market Forecasts 2017-2022,” expects adoption in the US […]
Walmart Taps Google for Omnichannel Commerce Play
Google and Walmart are teaming up to take on Amazon (and Alexa) with voice-activated commerce and more plans for 2018. Starting in late September, the retail giant will be working with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google Assistant.
Douugh Rises to Challenge with AI-Powered Banking
Banking challenger Douugh has unveiled its artificial intelligence-powered financial platform, guided by “Sophie”—a 24/7 personal assistant for finances.
Juniper Predicts Major Global Shift to Contactless on Heels of U.S. EMV Push
A new study from Juniper Research is forecasting that more than half (53 percent) of global transactions at the point of sale will be contactless within five years, compared with just 15 percent this year.
Get Smart: BofAML Brings AI to Accounts Receivable
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is launching a new solution—Intelligent Receivables—that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and other software to help companies “vastly improve” their straight-through reconciliation of incoming payments to help them post their receivables faster.
Barclays Enables ‘Voice Pay’ with Siri
Barclays announced on Aug. 21 that it’s the first U.K. high street bank that lets mobile banking customers make a payment by asking Siri. The payment, which relies on TouchID for authentication, can be completed without opening the Barclays Mobile Banking app.
Samsung’s Bixby AI expands to more countries
Look out Siri and Alexa, but Samsung says its artificial intelligence (AI) powered Bixby’s voice system has now expanded to more than 200 countries and territories. In addition to South Korea and the US, it is now available in the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa, among others. As reported in March, Samsung unveiled the […]
Fintech funding round-up: 21 August 2017
A short time ago, in a round-up near here (i.e. 18 August) we covered the lively world of fintech funding. Yet again, we have more cash action. Featuring Xinja, Capital Float and Prodigy Finance. Australia-based Xinja, which recently emerged from the shadows to unveil its plans for a mobile-only digital bank, is in the news […]
App Economy Dodges Bullet with Uber Court Victory
It’s a rare ray of sunshine for the embattled Uber, as it won a key fight in the U.S. Second Court of Appeals, which ruled its terms and conditions (Ts & Cs) are legally binding
Q&A with Mobey Forum’s ED Maikki Frisk
Six months after coming on board to lead the digital financial services trade association, Maikki Frisk talks about how to drive mobile payments adoption, the implications of Brexit and PSD2, and the ultimate importance of a good user experience.
Fiserv Buys Dovetail for Real-Time Payments Push
Fiserv has acquired payments software vendor Dovetail as it pushes deeper into the payments infrastructure sector and real-time payments. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Is Your Wallet Ready for 2020?
It’s safe to say mobile is just getting started as a payments form factor, but don’t chuck your plastic cards just yet. Personalization, including QR codes, can boost usage and help you stay top of wallet.
Mobile Contactless Hits £370 Million in U.K. in H1 2017
Mobile contactless transactions in the U.K. topped £370 million (US$476 million) in the first six months of 2017, a whopping 336 percent year-on-year increase, according to the latest transaction data from payments processor Worldpay. (Infographic included.)
Top 5 Best Challenger Banks: Revolut
Last month, we asked Paybefore.com visitors to vote for the Best Challenger Banks—the ones shaking up the status quo with a legit chance to become consumers’ preferred accounts, not just a stepping stone to the big banks. For the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing our spotlight articles on these challengers. First up is Revolut.
KeyBank invests in Billtrust, launches accounts receivable platform
KeyBank is putting its money where its mouth is. The bank isn’t just partnering with fintech companies, it’s also investing.
Top fintech stories this week – 18 August 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Physical containers – reused in novel ways. Does that include nextgen branch offices?
With standards as simple as what we see with shipping containers, creative folks will begin considering options for almost anything that can benefit from these containers being mobile. The user experience that today we enjoy with mobile devices has changed the very heart of today’s data centre even as we see on-premise IT moving to clouds. Couldn’t a case be made that such flexibility be embraced even more aggressively in the future and couldn’t that change the very way we view banking as it continues to transform?
P2P Payments Push Forward
In the P2P showdown, who will be left standing? See how early entrants like Venmo and Square Cash stack up against Zelle and Apple.
Singtel Rolls out First Virtual Visa Card in Singapore with Wirecard
The most popular digital wallet in Singapore has rolled out the first virtual Visa card in the country thanks to a partnership between global technology group and 2017 Pay Awards Change Agent of the Year Wirecard and Singtel.
White paper: digital trust is transforming online and mobile banking
Banks are beginning to re-align their internal processes and external-facing products to take advantage of, and more fully realize, the potential of digital transformation. One of the biggest challenges they come up against in this pursuit is how to balance customer experience and security. In other words, implementing a framework that accounts for all the […]
SWIFT Partners with TCH to Drive Instant Payments in the U.S.
Hot on the heels of the Fed’s Faster Payments Task Force final report and call for the industry to implement faster payments in the U.S. by 2020, SWIFT is offering a gateway.
Alipay Taps Yelp to Enrich Chinese Travel Experience
Alipay has inked a slew of partnerships lately. The latest deal for the Chinese app is with Yelp and connects local businesses with Chinese travelers, a move that’s likely to boost loyalty and transaction volume in one fell swoop.
The app economy is real, because our time is just too important
Many famous faces have decorated our notes over the years, but just like the cheque, cold, hard cash is living on borrowed time.
Digiliti Money Delays Earnings Report, Weighs Sale, Chapter 11
Instead of reporting its second-quarter earnings today, Digiliti Money Inc. plans to file for an extension with the SEC after its accounting firm flagged problems with its previous financial reports, the company announced Aug. 14.
Geoswift, UnionPay and Western Union Vie for Chinese International Tuition Payments with Amazon Promotion
As students gear up for back to school, the competition for international tuition payments continues to heat up. Geoswift, UnionPay International and Western Union Business Solutions are offering Amazon gift cards to Chinese students studying in 14 countries that use their service for cross-border tuition payments.
The Monday mindset: 14 August 2017
Fintech zeitgeist! This week, Banking Technology’s editor Tanya Andreasyan muses about the growing trend of celebrity endorsement in the fintech world.
Interview: Matteo Cassina, Saxo Bank – is digital banking the new Big Brother?
Amid the hustle and bustle of MoneyConf in Madrid, Banking Technology managed to grab a coffee with Matteo Cassina, global head of sales at Saxo Bank. Conversation turned from the demise of bank branches to the rise artificial intelligence (AI) and open banking.
WhatsApp to introduce payments feature
Facebook-owned messenger app WhatsApp submitted a new update through the Google Play Beta Programme, which will make payments available in the app’s new version.
Lowe’s rolls out FIS BizNow prepaid solution for SMEs
Home improvement chain Lowe’s has a new payments tool in its toolbox to help small businesses, contractors and construction professionals—a prepaid card and companion mobile app to manage business expenses.
