Following the OCC’s plans for a special fintech bank charter, which has state regulators and a few Democratic senators up in arms, the National Economic Council (NEC) of the U.S., part of the Office of White House Policy, has published a whitepaper, “A Framework for Fintech,” reports Paybefore’s sister publication Banking Tech.
They said it. We read it. We edited. A round-up of the latest funding efforts in the fintech and payments space. Featuring Kasisto, BillGO, Gumption Labs and Fraugster.
Blockchain incubator Adel has unveiled its project framework for people to create a peer-to-peer (P2P) network in retail banking. The firm says it will work in the “same way as Airbnb and Uber revolutionised the hospitality and taxi industries”. “Anyone with a car can be a taxi. Anyone with accommodations can be a hotel. Anyone […]
As you consider a New Year’s resolution to improve fraud prevention in 2017, remember that implementing fraud prevention at the platform level not only protects your merchants, but actually helps you enhance growth and protect margins and profitability.
Blockchain, the foundation for digital currency transactions, shows the potential to create better passenger ID and cut down on fraud targeted at airline loyalty programs.
Card issuers have only a few months to plan and implement the new CFPB rules. For card issuers looking to control costs and maintain more flexibility, now is the time to investigate on-demand card production and lean on the experts to ensure you meet the October 1, 2017 deadline.
All signs point to the rapid nationwide decline in check use being good for consumers, businesses and the financial system. Payments Canada forecasts that by 2020, virtually all checks written by businesses and governments in Canada will have migrated to electronic payments.
Discover and PayPal have reached a deal that will expand PayPal’s POS presence while making Discover a more visible payment option within the PayPal mobile wallet. Under terms of the pact, PayPal will gain access to Discover’s tokenization services, enabling U.S. PayPal customers to use their Discover cards within the PayPal wallet app to make contactless purchases at contactless-enabled merchants that accept Discover.
Credit card surcharges came before the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 10, in a case that concerns how much freedom retailers have in telling consumers they are being charged extra for the payment method. Comments from justices suggested that the Supreme Court might send the case back to New York for further review, though it was unclear when a decision would be announced, according to news reports.
Go big or go home: Fifth Third on Jan. 11 said that its customers can now use five major mobile wallet providers, with debit and credit card purchases via the recently added Android Pay and Microsoft Wallet, along with previous partners Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Masterpass.
Andrew Buckley has been named executive vice president, global prepaid solutions at Mastercard.
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has appointed Green Dot Corp. founder and CEO Steve Streit to its Los Angeles Branch board of directors for a three-year term, beginning Jan. 1, 2017.
Airtel Payments Bank has appointed Dhiraj Sharda as its new chief digital officer ahead of the full launch of the digital banking service throughout India
E-money and payment solutions provider Contis Group has named Neil Delaney as chief commercial officer.
Jay Lerner has been sworn in as the inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
GlobalPlatform, an association which standardizes the management of applications on secure chip technology, has announced its board of directors for fiscal year 2017.
Mastercard has announced three new leadership appointments for its global products and solutions team in Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore.
Corey Besaw has been appointed senior vice president of innovation for Ubiquity Global Services, a multinational services organization offering solutions for the financial services and payments space.
The newly seated 115th U.S. Congress includes several new faces on one of the most important committees for financial services regulation. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) announced 10 new Republican members who will serve on the committee for the new Congress.
Honda and Visa are testing a system that enables a driver to pay for fuel and parking from inside Web-connected cars, the latest development in the emerging Internet of Things, and yet another sign that more payments are moving beyond physical payment cards.
A skirmish over the future of U.S. fintech is underway in the new U.S. Senate, with two Democratic senators this week saying a new federal charter governing the industry “could weaken consumer protections, limit competition and threaten financial stability.”
U.S. adults bought about $46 billion worth of gift cards over the past year—and a significant chunk of that total was comprised of gift cards for self-use, according to a new study by market research firm Packaged Facts. Of the total consumers spent on gift cards, $28 billion was for gift cards given to friends and family, while $11 billion was for gift cards they gave to themselves, the report found. The remaining $7 billion was comprised of gift cards given by companies to their employees.
Ahead of what could be some big changes for the CFPB during the incoming Trump administration, the agency has announced new appointments to several leadership positions.
A major payments battle has come to an end: Walmart Canada and Visa said they have reached a deal that enables consumers to use Visa-branded payment cards at retail locations in that country.
Data analytics and artificial intelligence are on nearly everyone’s 2017 trend-watch lists, but Clarity Money wants to put those same tools directly into consumers hands with an app it says will improve financial well-being and increase users’ financial literacy.
E-commerce accounted for 21.3 percent of U.S. holiday retail sales this past season, up from 15.4 percent from 2015, according to First Data, a further sign that consumers continue to switch their buying and payments away from traditional retail stores. By contrast, full season holiday spending, excluding gas purchases, increased 4.7 percent from last year—still well behind the growth rate for e-commerce but better than the measly 1.8 percent growth booked in 2015.
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! The first weekly news round-up of 2017. Happy 2017! Let it be a year of discovery and success.
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A partner with law firm Sullivan & Cromwell specializing in mergers and securities offerings, Clayton has advised on many major investment banking deals, including the record-breaking IPO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2014.
Bitcoin, which has long nursed an outlaw persona, seems to be transforming into a yuppie. In the latest sign that the digital currency is moving into the mainstream, iPayYou, a U.S.-based bitcoin platform, said its technology now will enable coffee and food purchases at Starbucks, a chain typically associated with middle- and upper-class urban and suburban lifestyles.
The federal government wants the public’s help in securing the Internet of Things, an invitation backed by a $25,000 top prize and which comes amid concerns that 2017 will bring a large-scale breach in the emerging Web-connected infrastructure.
The Shanghai Prepaid Card Association is warning consumers about buying prepaid cards from certain merchants because of “malpractice in managing their prepaid card schemes,” according to an announcement on Shanghai’s municipal Website.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that Mastercard’s acquisition of VocaLink gives rise to competition concerns.
The CFPB’s emphasis on fee disclosures and marketing practices was highlighted in a major way this week, as the bureau levied a $23.1 million enforcement action against credit reporting agencies Equifax and TransUnion over allegedly misstating the cost and usefulness of their products and “luring” customers into recurring payments. Although targeted at credit bureaus, the enforcement action offers key takeaways for payments providers shaping their own compliance efforts to stay out of the CFPB’s cross hairs, according to industry observers.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is worried that Mastercard’s billion-dollar deal to acquire VocaLink could hinder competition, and the CMA is giving the two companies until Jan. 11 to address a concern or face an “in-depth investigation,” according to the authority.
The financial services arm of car manufacturer Volkswagen Group has bought parking payments firm PayByPhone, a deal that underscores the appeal of mobile payments and bolsters the automotive company’s presence in the parking transactions space.
India-based Paytm is growing up fast. The online commerce platform, which launched its mobile wallet in 2014, has received permission from the Reserve Bank of India to operate a digital bank. The move comes as digital transaction rates in India—where the country’s popular 500 (US$7) and 1,000 (US$15) rupee notes were recently taken out of circulation—have increased as much as 1,000 percent since early November.
Prepaid cards accounted for 9.9 billion transactions and $270 billion in spending volume in the U.S. in 2015—an increase of $600 million since 2012—but prepaid growth is slowing as the products become more mainstream, according to a study from the Federal Reserve.
China has made it loud and clear it intends to position itself as a global fintech leader. A group of state and privately held companies launched a $1.44 billion investment fund called the Asia FinTech Merger and Acquisition Fund of Funds (Asia FinTech FoF). The fund will focus on fintech mergers and acquisitions, and “nurture” initiatives in the fintech industry, according to a Dec. 28 announcement by Credit China FinTech Holdings Ltd., which led the investment.
Complaints about prepaid products dropped 59 percent from September through November in 2016 compared with the same period the previous year, according to the latest CFPB Monthly Complaint Report. That drop, to 183 complaints on average per month, represents the largest percentage decrease in complaints among all the products tracked by the federal agency, and comes as the CFPB in its new report focuses on debt collection.
To kick off 2017, we asked industry leaders to tell us what happened in 2016 that will most affect their businesses and where they will be investing in 2017 and why.
