It’s a good thing Solana (“Sol”) Cozzo is high energy. When she’s not literally running or chasing after 3-year-old twins, she’s running Mastercard’s North American prepaid and inclusive growth business. It’s hard work when you consider that “the cardable opportunity is about seven times the current market,” she says.
There’s a new fintech challenger in town. Toronto-based STACK announced its partnership with Mastercard two weeks ahead of the beta launch of its mobile financial services app and companion prepaid card.
Several payments companies have announced efforts to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana, including monetary donations, interchange fee waivers and m-POS equipment.
Commonwealth Bank and Mastercard are working together to improve financial inclusion for Indonesian women with a focus on business owners.
Former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks is appealing the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal’s decision not to certify his claim in a proposed £14 billion (US$18.2 billion) class action lawsuit against Mastercard over interchange.
Mastercard can breathe a sigh of relief as the £14 billion (US$18.15 billion) lawsuit—a collective action over card charges that were passed on to shoppers—has been stopped by the U.K.’s Competition Appeals Tribunal.
Mastercard has entered into an agreement to acquire Brighterion Inc., a software company specializing in artificial intelligence. This acquisition follows Masterdard’s March acquisition of NuData Security and will further expand Mastercard’s capabilities to “deliver an enhanced customer experience and security.”
Payments startups usually boast about their ability to future-proof their technology. For U.K. payments startup Curve, a big part of its appeal is helping users go back in time.
Curve and its all-cards-in-one Curve Mastercard and accompanying banking app apparently has struck a chord with small businesses and freelancers. More than 50,000 SMEs have signed up for the London-based startup’s program, which recorded £50 million (US$63.3 million) in user spending since the beta period began last year.
Mastercard and Western Union have teamed up to help refugees around the world access goods, services and financial services within refugee settlements. Announced on June 20—World Refugee Day—the partnership will explore ways to use a digital model to serve the more than 65 million people around the world currently displaced from their homes due to political conflict and natural disasters.
When the self-described skeptic took over as global head of prepaid for Mastercard earlier this year, Andrew Buckley wasn’t quite convinced that the opportunities ahead were worthy of all the hype. Five months later and he’s among the converted, preaching the gospel of democratization—not just of payments but of innovation.
With increasing global smartphone penetration and a willing consumer base, financial institutions recognize the potential of biometrics to offer more convenience and security to their customers—but a lack of familiarity with the still-new technology among top banking brass remains a significant barrier to adoption, a new report from Mastercard and Oxford University found.
Mastercard has appointed Shafi Shaikh executive vice president, customer delivery, Asia-Pacific. Shaikh oversees customer support, product delivery and customer relationships.
Payments compete for attention with “RegTech” while an overall lull in disruption suggests that fintech could be in the eye of a storm.
Bank has found another way to use the artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistants. The online-only Australian bank launched RoboChat May 15 to help home buyers—and homeowners who want to refinance—complete UBank’s online home loan application more easily.
France-based retail giant Carrefour and French bank BNP Paribas have joined forces to launch Lyf Pay, a new mobile wallet that supports in-store and P2P transactions as well as loyalty cards, coupons and offers.
The U.S. purchase volume of credit, debit and prepaid cards increased 7 percent in 2016 compared with last year, according to The Nilson Report. That purchase volume hit $5.648 trillion last year, with the volume from American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa credit cards increasing 8 percent year over over to reach a combined $3.059 trillion—the first time that figure has topped $3 trillion.
U.K. challenger bank Starling is staying busy with the launch of its real-time mobile offering, Starling Payment Services. The new division of the bank will offer sponsorship access to the U.K.’s major payment schemes, enabling other banks, payment service providers and fintech companies to use real-time payments from the summer.
Sure, convenience remains vital. But to reach digitally savvy consumers—including millennials—new entrants in the payments arena will need to think socially, and be ready to chat.
Hungry Facebook Messenger users can order a meal, do their grocery shopping or send a gift card for a sweet treat without leaving the messaging platform. Mastercard announced April 18 at the Facebook Developer Conference that it has launched Masterpass-enabled, artificial intelligence-powered chatbots with Subway, FreshDirect and The Cheesecake Factory.
Competition in the corporate meal voucher market in India is heating up as providers are launching alternatives to paper vouchers, which the Reserve Bank of India will no longer allow beyond 2017. Among them is online commerce platform Paytm and electronic payments provider Zeta.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority gave its blessing April 11, enabling Mastercard to complete its acquisition of 92.4 percent of VocaLink Holdings for $920 million. The deal, which is expected to close within weeks, gives Mastercard control of a large portion of the U.K. transaction processing market.
Cachet Financial Solutions is working with Central Bank of Kansas City again. The two companies, which in March announced a partnership to bring mobile-optimized prepaid programs to community banks, now are working with Rebar Interactive to provide Select Mobile Money-Express, a platform that includes a Mastercard-branded prepaid card.
Mastercard is beefing up its transaction security and authentication capabilities in the age of connected devices, entering an agreement to acquire NuData Security, a Pay Award-winning provider of anti-fraud technology that uses session and biometric indicators to verify online transactions.
A legal battle between merchants and payment networks over interchange fees that has been raging for more than a decade will continue now that the Supreme Court has declined to restore a $5.7 billion settlement agreement that was tossed out by a lower court.
While the Indian government works toward a digital economy, the Reserve Bank of India is soliciting feedback through March 31 on guidelines for prepaid payment instruments that could adversely affect issuers of prepaid products, including mobile wallets.
Banks that aren’t proactive in adopting the latest artificial intelligence technology for customer service risk losing those customers. That’s because many online-only banks and others are investing in automated assistants that improve customer interactions by predicting why customers are contacting the bank and resolving the issue quickly.
Consumers are expressing interest in and enthusiasm for emerging payment methods in their social media conversations, according to a new report. Mastercard’s fifth annual Digital Payments Study analyzed more than 3.5 million public interactions in 2016 between consumers on social media channels—including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter—to glean insight about consumer attitudes toward new payment technologies worldwide.
Mastercard and Poste Italiane have struck a new deal under which the Italian postal service’s Postepay app has integrated Masterpass to enable users to make mobile purchases—a deal the companies hope will appeal to Postepay’s large base of younger users.
Bots, biometrics and wristbands stood out as examples of payments innovation this week at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Judging by the product releases and displays, the future promises to involve more use of fingerprints in payments, and technology that allows quick purchasing from social media.
Mastercard and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in Singapore have teamed up to launch a pilot program enabling commuters to pay for transit fares using contactless payment cards through an account-based ticketing (ABT) system. Although the tap-and-go pilot hasn’t begun yet, the next step of enabling consumers to use mobile wallets and wearables already is in the works.
Mastercard significantly will expand the scope and capabilities of its Qkr with Masterpass mobile payment service, the network said Feb. 27. Not only is the technology set to debut in the U.S. and five other countries, but it will now integrate with retail software provider Oracle.
In a Feb. 16 field hearing, the CFPB said it wants industry input on using alternative data to help thin- or no-file consumers build credit scores. It’s a challenge that many in the prepaid industry have been trying to solve for years to better serve cardholders who often are among the approximately 26 million U.S. consumers who don’t have a credit history and another 19 million consumers whose credit histories are insufficient to produce a credit score, according to CFPB estimates.
The CFPB is “putting the prepaid industry on notice that companies will face the consequences if consumers are denied access to their money or to the services they pay for and on which they have the right to depend.” In its first enforcement action against prepaid providers, the bureau on Feb. 1 announced that UniRush and Mastercard will pay a combined $13 million for a 2015 service disruption that left cardholders without access to their funds.
Mastercard can put a notch in the win column after a High Court judge ruled in the payment card network’s favor regarding a lawsuit brought on by retailers disputing cross-border interchange fees on debit and credit cards.
Paybefore’s first-ever payments year-in-review report, sponsored by The Bancorp, is available now. Offering an in-depth look at key trends and the Top 10 payments stories from 2016 that will continue to shape the industry in 2017 and beyond, this must-have resource examines everything influencing the industry from the CFPB and Uber to Brexit and Trump and much more.
More than 138 million Europeans do not have access to formal banking services, says Mastercard in a new report—news that could present an opportunity to prepaid providers and so-called “challenger banks.”
Mastercard and Cardlytics have formed a new partnership that will streamline the process for banks implementing Cardlytics’ card-linked marketing offers, and ensure that consumers can access offers online and via mobile devices.
