The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Oct. 5 released its final rule on prepaid accounts, a move that sharply expands the definition of prepaid—to the distinct displeasure of prepaid industry players. The new rules, which take effect Oct. 1, 2017, are quite similar to what CFPB had initially proposed, with provisions tweaked in the final rule, rather than major additions or deletions.
A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit alleging payment networks colluded over fraud liability can go forward, denying the networks’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Filed in March 2016 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by two Florida retailers, the lawsuit accuses American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa of engaging in “a conspiracy” when shifting liability for transaction fraud to merchants that failed to upgrade their POS systems to accept EMV chip technology by Oct. 1, 2015.
Google has ended the grace period for unsupported payment cards that can be used with Android Pay. Those cards include products from such financial institutions as Citi, Discover and Wells Fargo, according to Google.
LG Electronics and Paymentwall said Oct. 4 that they will expand the online payment options available through LG’s webOS “smart” TVs. The program “will give consumers easier access to paid apps, movies, games and much more through LG’s intuitive webOS Smart TV platform,” LG said. The effort involves some 140 payment options in 200 countries.
Members of global payments network Eurogiro are now able to transfer funds to mobile money and bank accounts through a partnership with B2B mobile payment network TransferTo, the companies announced Oct. 3. Through TransferTo’s payments network, Eurogiro’s network members can expand their service offerings by providing mobile payments and, for example, accept remittances at a post office in one country and transfer the funds to a recipient’s mobile wallet in another country.
In perhaps one of the most dramatic instances of resistance to EMV since the technology began rolling out more than a year ago, Austin, Texas, public transit plans to stop accepting payment card purchases at vending machines at its nine commuter rail stations, rather than upgrade to EMV-compatible machines.
Meta Financial Group, the parent of MetaBank and Meta Payment Systems, said Oct. 3 it will buy EPS Financial LLC, which sells tax-related financial transaction products, for $42.5 million. The half stock, half cash deal will close in the fourth quarter, Meta Financial said.
In a study conducted by the CFPB, with assistance from American Express, researchers found that offering a monetary incentive was most effective in motivating consumers to set money aside in savings accounts. The research results from the study, “Tools for Saving: Using Prepaid Accounts to Set Aside Funds,” also indicate that having a savings option reduced consumers’ use of payday loan services.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers has asked the CFPB to reconsider some of the agency’s proposed restrictions on short-term lenders, arguing that such loans provide much-needed access to credit for those who have few other alternatives.
IBM plans to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm, to boost IBM Watson’s cognitive technology. Upon close of the deal, Promontory’s employees will train Watson, which will learn by “continuously ingesting regulatory information as it is created and through interaction in real-world applications”. Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice-president, IBM […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place – and all with a Sibos touch! Blockchain: be ready to ‘fail fast and fail cheap’ Wouldn’t it be better to succeed in the first place? Innotribe plots rise of new fintech hubs A tribe calling for a […]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 agreed to hear arguments from a group of New York merchants who want the right to impose surcharges on purchases made with credit cards. The outcome of the case could have an effect on laws in 10 states that restrict such surcharges.
To help consumers build a credit history or improve their existing credit scores, Green Dot Corp. launched Sept. 29 the Green Dot Platinum Visa Secured Credit Card. Being a secured credit card, the credit line is backed by the cardholder’s security deposit held with Green Dot Bank.
Of the total card base, global brand general purpose cards accounted for about 60.79 percent at the end of 2015. Domestic general purpose cards accounted for 5.53 percent, while private label cards accounted for 33.69 percent, Nilson said.
Within a two-day span, the CFPB ordered two companies in separate cases to pay a total of more than $12.6 million in civil penalties and refunds.
Top pics and captions from Swift’s Sibos 2016 conference in Geneva! A compilation from day 4.
Ericsson has joined forces with HomeSend, a joint venture between Mastercard, eServGlobal and Bics that focuses on mobile money remittances in emerging markets. Ericsson’s digital wallet, Ericsson Wallet Platform, is now HomeSend Certified. The product has access to HomeSend’s network of money transfer operators, cash agents and banks in more than 200 countries. Peter Heuman, […]
Sberbank and the Linux Foundation have entered into an agreement on the bank’s participation in the Hyperledger Project. The deal was signed at the Sibos conference in Geneva and Lev Khasis, first deputy chairman of the executive board of Sberbank, said the new development with Hyperledger, and its open source platform based on blockchain, offered “access to […]
The International Bank of Azerbaijan has partnered with Backbase to implement its omnichannel digital banking platform. With the platform, the bank will be able to provide its products and services to customers through multiple channels synchronously, creating a single multimodal touch point. The contract was signed yesterday onsite at Sibos at Backbone’s booth, between Jouk […]
To drive ISO 20022 adoption, the industry is calling for collaboration and for those with the ‘right stuff’ to lead the way. A panel yesterday, ISO 20022 market practice developments, gave a global view of the status of ISO 20022 in the payments and securities markets. Gerard Smith, director collateral services at LCH.Clearnet, said the […]
Correspondent bankers have been advised to “fail fast and fail cheap” when it comes to blockchain technology. During the Blockchain and correspondent banking – The way to go? session yesterday, a panel explored the possible use cases and barriers to adoption of blockchain technology – one of the most talked about technologies at this year’s […]
A decade ago, cities fought to be financial hubs; today they fight to be financial technology (fintech) hubs. While London, New York and Silicon Valley claim strong status as fintech hubs, Sibos has proved that there are plenty of emergent centres snapping at their heels. Innotribe’s Startup Challenge, which brings fintech companies to the attention […]
Blockchain innovation for central securities depositories (CSDs) is a slow burn and one that can divide opinion. During the Innovation in CSD space: What about distributed ledger technology? session yesterday, some panellists argued that the technology would hail the end of CSDs while others said there would be no revolution, just a “natural evolution” of […]
Bank of Palestine debuted at Sibos this year with a colourful booth and much interest from Sibos delegates. “We have been attending Sibos for many years as delegates and as our delegation grew from two or three people to bigger numbers, we decided to have a stand,” said Hashim Shawa, chairman and general manager of […]
If central banks want to retain a large share of payments in central bank money, they must innovate, said Andrew Hauser, executive director for banking, payments and financial resilience, Bank of England (BOE). Speaking during the Towards a single platform for all payments session, he said BOE consultation on a refresh of its real time […]
Open application programming interface (API) banking and immediate payments are a perfect storm for new banking, according to FIS. Established payment systems do not work in the way most consumers and businesses expect in a digital, mobile, real time world. Consumers expect instant gratification; digital money should act more like physical cash in terms of […]
U.K.-headquartered mobile payments provider Bango has selected Robert Payne to serve as executive vice president of strategic partnerships.
CardConnect has hired Jason Williams as senior vice president, business development.
EastNets, a global provider of compliance, payment and cloud solutions for the financial services industry, has appointed Robbert de Vries as the company’s new chief technology officer.
Following Emerchants’ May 2016 acquisition of Store Financial’s U.S. and Canada operations, the company has unveiled a new brand name and identity: EML.
Gresham, a provider of transaction control and enterprise data integrity software, has hired Jim Hannibal as sales director for Europe.
Alex Sion, co-founder of mobile bank Moven, will join JPMorgan Chase as executive director of mobile banking, effective Oct. 3.
Omnichannel transaction services provider NCR Corp. has appointed Mark Benjamin as president and COO.
An era of “unprecedented change” is happening, driven by new regulation and technology, Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM, said during a plenary address, Cognitive Business and the Future of Financial Services. “There is a moment of opportunity if you choose to seize it,” she said, referencing artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data and […]
Top pics and captions from Swift’s Sibos 2016 conference in Geneva! A compilation from day 3.
More collaboration is required among members of the correspondent banking community, despite the progress that has been made through efforts such as the Global Payments Innovation (GPI) initiative.
CLS Group has started building a payment netting service, using existing message protocols and distributed ledger technology (DLT), which will be open to all FX market participants – not just CLS members –and will also enable CLS members to net some FX trades that are currently settled outside the CLS settlement service.
Eight years on from the financial crisis, the market climate remains challenging. The global economy is still very shaky, there is still plenty of uncertainty regarding ongoing reforms and interaction with regulators, lending is limited by higher capital requirements, extremely low (or even negative) interest rates are not generating good returns and banks need to invest heavily in IT infrastructures to appease the supervisors.
“First they think it’s stupid, then they think it’s obvious. Blockchain has passed the first test.” These are the words of an economics professor (quoted, but not present) on revolutionary ideas, and perhaps a succinct evaluation of where blockchain is right now. In a packed conference room on the Monday afternoon (26 September), the panel discussed “Blockchain 2020 – what next for adoption by the financial industry”.
Blockchain technology has the potential to help ease banks’ profitability pressures, particularly in Europe’s negative interest rate environment, an audience was told at an offsite briefing yesterday morning. Patrick Laurent, a partner at Deloitte, told delegates at a breakfast meeting organised by Temenos that companies such as Ripple had already developed blockchain solutions that could […]
