Fintech funding can be an intense blur of money, jargon and unerringly similar expansion plans. Here’s a round-up that gets to the heart of the matter. Features Plynk, IHS Markit, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Wahed. Ireland’s Plynk, a money messaging app, has revealed a Series A raise of €25 million. Led by […]
Anders la Cour, CEO of ground-breaking payments utility Saxo Payments Banking Circle, which is underpinning the service propositions of a growing number of payments businesses, reports on the payment pain points currently faced by merchants who have ambitions to trade globally.
Apple has made a bold foray into the P2P money transfer market—and Green Dot is helping the tech giant in its bid to unseat Venmo and other established players in the increasingly crowded space.
The U.S. Justice Department may have dropped its antitrust suit against American Express, but 11 states want to press on in a case that started in 2010. At issue is the company’s push to prevent Amex-accepting merchants from offering shoppers financial incentives to use other card brands.
On the heels of expanding into the B2B sector earlier this year, cross-border payments specialist Flywire has acquired PACE Invoice, a multicurrency invoicing platform provider based in London. The purchase bolsters Flywire’s offerings to enable its business, education and health care clients to more easily link invoices to cross-border receivables, increasing efficiency and savings, according to the company.
Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR said it will buy Sage Payment Solutions, the Virginia-based merchant-services offshoot of U.K.-based Sage Group, for $260 million. Sage Group sells business software, and Sage Payment serves some 100,000 merchants.
Apple has unveiled Pay Cash as it looks to fight it out with PayPal, Square and Venmo in the overcrowded peer-to-peer (P2P) payments market. In a range of updates to its mobile operating system, iOS 11, new features to the iPhone and iPad are coming this autumn. Apple Pay users will be able to make […]
A new instant-issuance product from CPI Card Group promises faster card processing times along with higher resolution printing. Called Precision by Card@Once, the system is designed to improve security and the customer experience.
You’ve heard of wearables—now meet “drinkables.” Global Processing Services (GPS) is helping support a new energy drink marketing campaign featuring special bottles equipped with contactless chips, each preloaded with a credit for a trip on the London Underground. The campaign for the Lucozade Energy brand launched last week, with bottles distributed free at major London train stations and commuter hubs.
Following Airbnb’s acquisition of crowdfunding and social payments start-up Tilt in February, it is now being wound down. Tilt (formerly Crowdtilt) was built with the aim to allow groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. It was founded five years ago with high hopes. Its co-founder and CEO James Beshara said at […]
Following Airbnb’s acquisition of crowdfunding and social payments startup Tilt in February, it is now being wound down.
Earning top-of-wallet privileges from consumers requires deeper thinking about the what, when, where, why and how of loyalty rewards. But the most important ingredient is simplicity.
Breathless reports point to a terrifying increase in U.K. contactless fraud. Dig a little deeper, however, and the story changes.
All payment providers and merchants grasp the dynamic nature of fraud. But fraud prevention requires more than the latest software and security protections—it requires active collaboration. Here’s why.
I can scarcely believe we’re approaching the halfway point of 2017. But I can’t think of a better time for the year’s biggest prepaid industry event. On June 21-23, the NBPCA will host its sixth annual Power of Prepaid conference in Washington, D.C. The business of compliance—not to mention keeping up with technology trends—is keeping everyone on their toes, but it’s vital to stop and reflect with colleagues about the state of the industry and its future. It’s also critical to actually talk to those shaping the legislation and regulations that determine the rules of the road.
A.J. Koehn has joined Urban FT Inc., a digital payments platform provider and 2017 Pay Awards winner for Startup of the Year, as its new senior vice president of compliance and program management.
Bank of America is testing a service enabling its customers who use third-party data aggregators to view their financial information in one place. BofA is testing the capability with two financial data aggregators to enable customers to securely connect data from their bank accounts to third-party money management apps.
Visa is beefing up its Verified by Visa authentication service. The payments network said it’s upgrading its back-end to support 3-D Secure 2.0. The 3-D Secure messaging protocol was invented by the network more than 15 years ago and has become an industry standard for online authentication.
About two months after launching in the U.K., Square has introduced its Virtual Terminal service there. The technology enables merchants to accept payments through the Square dashboard, an appealing prospect for online service providers, contractors and other smaller firms that do relatively few face-to-face transactions.
There is no question that the commercial card sector is growing strongly. According to Research and Markets, the US commercial card market in particular is outstripping other B2B payment types. For banks and banking services providers, this presents a huge opportunity to grow revenues while improving customer experience – a vital component in customer retention and increased lifetime value.
Deutsche Bank has named Tommaso Zanobini global head of financial technology.
Fidor, a digital banking solutions provider, has appointed Jeff Hibbard chief product officer. Hibbard’s focus is on driving product innovation for Fidor’s operating system.
PSCU, a credit union service organization, has appointed Chris Shockley associate director to its board.
Mobile payments platform provider Judopay has appointed Ryan Farley CEO.
Mastercard has appointed Shafi Shaikh executive vice president, customer delivery, Asia-Pacific. Shaikh oversees customer support, product delivery and customer relationships.
TransferTo, a global B2B cross-border payments network, has appointed two senior executive team members as part of the company’s plan to accelerate business growth.
Worldpay vice chairman Ron Kalifa has ranked third out of 100 in the EMpower Ethnic Minority Leaders List, presented by The Financial Times
Citi has appointed Manish Kohli global head of the payments and receivables business.
International Regtech Association, a global nonprofit association focusing on regulation technology has been formed, with more than 100 founding members.
Wirecard North America, a provider of global payment solutions, has appointed Kevin Brown to the Wirecard executive team in North America.
Retailers are claiming victory in the battle, if not the war, regarding proposed legislation that would have repealed interchange reform included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Full House set to vote on amended Financial CHOICE Act June 9.
First Data will buy U.S.-based payments processor CardConnect for about $750 million in cash, including the repayment of debt.
Chipotle Mexican Grill said that whoever hacked into payments system used malware that searched for consumer track data read from the magnetic stripes of cards.
Barclaycard has begun trialling a new payment concept that lets consumers scan and pay for their shopping using their smartphone, without the need to visit a physical checkout. Called Grab+Go, it’s the firm’s plan to turn a smartphone into a “pocket checkout”, allowing users to scan the items they want to buy as they pick […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
A lack of understanding and trust in technology is stalling mainstream adoption of innovative new fintech services, according to HSBC’s research. The bank’s report, “Trust in Technology”, shows that technologies such as fingerprint recognition, voice recognition and robo-advice “hold enormous potential” for uses from bank security to mobile payments and investment advice. John Flint, global […]
With graduation and wedding season upon us, InComm is advising retailers to take advantage of these occasions, among others, and improve sales by offering themed open-loop gift cards and promoting them with corresponding displays.
BitPay, a 2017 Pay Award winner, said this week that it has released its BitPay Visa Prepaid Debit Card in 131 countries. The card “makes it possible for users to convert bitcoin into a spendable dollar, euro or pound balance” on the card in a matter of minutes, the company said.
Retailer Target recently agreed to pay $18.5 million as part of a settlement with 47 states and the District of Columbia that stems from 2013 data breach. The news is a stark reminder of how costly and prolonged the process of recovering from a breach can be, which is why security continues to be at the forefront of payments news with three companies making significant announcements this week.
Researchers at Worldpay are investigating how shoppers can pay using a credit or debit card while remaining within a virtual environment. As part of its real ambitions, the payments firm has created a proof of concept (PoC), with the aim to provide the “same levels of convenience, and security” that shoppers have in-store and online, […]
