A U.K. government panel is calling for the development of an open banking standard that will enable banking data to be shared and used securely, giving consumers access to tailored financial solutions and an easier way to compare products and services.
Police in Louisville, Ky., have arrested nine people for allegedly running a fraud ring centered around gift cards.
Knowledge is power. And, that’s particularly true for merchants and marketers that want to track consumers from online ad campaigns to in-store purchases. Arming merchants with the right knowledge is the goal of Discover’s Merchant Data Platform.
Visa’s newest service enables prepaid and other cardholders to exercise more control over their accounts via spending controls and alerts. Issuers can choose to offer the service to customers.
Four more startups have been selected for the Commerce.Innovated. program. The companies represent the fourth class chosen by MasterCard and Silicon Valley Bank as part of a program to help startups get their products and services off the ground.
Bitcoin continues to encounter hurdles as its supporters try to facilitate the digital currency’s mainstream acceptance. Though certain states and countries are welcoming bitcoin, or permitting it with certain provisos, Russia is considering a ban.
Green Dot and subsidiary Santa Barbara Tax Products Group have announced a pair of promotions to make this time of year less taxing on consumers while helping independent tax preparers get more customers coming through their doors. One of the promotions involves up to a $750 free advance toward consumers’ tax returns.
Visa wants to strengthen its commerce offerings by opening up its technology treasure chest to software developers bent on improving consumer experiences. The payment network has launched Visa Developer, an “open platform that gives application developers access to Visa’s payments technology, products and services.”
The money keeps rolling in for fintech. Fit Pay, a wearable payment technology startup, raises $3.1 million in seed capital, while distributed ledger technology companies collectively have raised $103 million.
Cybercriminals continue to target payments providers and retailers, with Gyft and Neiman Marcus among the latest firms to announce separate data breaches. The attacks highlight two major data security issues facing financial providers and retailers: third-party security and the migration of fraud to online accounts as a result of enhanced POS security brought about by the arrival of EMV.
To succeed as a startup hub Switzerland may need to focus on developing a hub for senior entrepreneurs within the financial industry. That is one suggestion stemming from a new report into the country’s capacity to become an innovation hub for fintech firms, published by consultancy EY and the Swiss Finance and Technology Association, entitled […]
Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) is working with core banking technology provider Misys to upgrade to develop a digital platform. Misys reports it has previously run two major projects with TBI in 2003 and 2009. The bank, claims to have introduced the market’s first ATM solutions and Visa and Mastercard offerings and is set to […]
The European Central Bank has selected connectivity provider SIA, in partnership with telco Colt, for its connection to TARGET2-Securities (T2S), the delayed centralised European platform for the settlement of domestic and cross-border securities transactions. The European Central Bank is expected to migrate to SIA and Colt’s value-added network infrastructure in June 2016. The two companies will also provide the ECB with a message processing […]
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its 2016 supervisory priorities for credit rating agencies (CRAs) and trade repositories (TRs). The regulatory authority reports seeing a number of changes in the CRA and TR industries during 2015, with new applicants for registration in both sectors, and current authorised entities seeking to develop their […]
Visa Developer, will offer software application developers will open access to Visa’a payments technology, products and services. The new Visa Developer platform is designed to help financial institutions, merchants, and technology companies meet the demands of consumers and merchants, who increasingly rely on connected devices to shop, pay and get paid. At launch, the new […]
European Central Bank (ECB) figures appear to show that cashless payments transaction volumes in 2014 remained flat at 68 billion payments. However, Deutsche Bank analyst Heike Mai, who specialises in payments and shadow banking, has published a report that corrects this conclusion. Entitled ‘Payments in the euro area: Are they stagnating? – No!’ the report […]
At Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, Visa will promote contactless payments at concession stands and in-seat mobile ordering for fans who don’t want to miss any action. Ingenico also announces a big terminal deal for the game.
Western Union continues to extend its digital reach with access to approximately 664 million users of mobile messaging app Viber, which enables its customers to send free text messages, photos, videos and make free calls with its push-to-talk capability, among other features.
Pin4, a cardless ATM withdrawal system, could expand to some 70,000 U.S. cash machines by the third quarter of 2016, up from approximately 15,000 in the first quarter of 2016, says CEO Richard Witkowski.
Investment manager AllianceBernstein is working with Interactive Data, to help evaluate its trade execution quality and perform transaction cost analysis (TCA). The work will be done across various mutual funds and separately managed portfolios using Interactive Data’s Best Execution (Best Ex) service. The service leverages its Continuous Evaluated Fixed-Income Pricing to run TCA for fixed-income […]
The CFPB announced today a three-prong approach to ensure consumers are receiving a fair shake regarding checking account access. But what may surprise many in the prepaid industry is that the agency also is providing information to consumers about the prepaid option.
Shortly after the original deadline to reach an agreement expired on Sunday, the EU Commission and the U.S. have agreed to a new Safe Harbor deal. The new framework will protect the fundamental rights of Europeans when their data are transferred to the U.S. and ensure legal certainty for businesses, according to an EU Commission announcement.
In a new twist on card-linked offers, Visa launches Visa Commerce Network, which it says will make it easier for merchants to engage Visa cardholders with reward and loyalty offers. Uber and Dunkin’ Donuts are among the first companies using the tool.
European Union leaders are calling for tighter regulation of prepaid cards and virtual currencies to restrict terrorist financing and anonymous payments. The European Commission—the executive arm of the EU—also said it will consider launching an intra-EU version of a transaction monitoring agreement that has since 2010 helped detect the movement of funds by terrorists between the U.S. and EU.
Arthur Budovsky pleaded guilty in January after it was determined his company, Liberty Reserve, served as a global hub for laundering more than $250 million of ill-gotten funds from cybercriminals, according to the DOJ.
A snapshot of payments-related earnings reports recently announced is available to you below. Click the company name for more details: The Bancorp Inc. MasterCard American Express Co. Meta Financial Group, Inc. PayPal Holdings Inc. TSYS
P2P lending in the U.K. is a booming business that’s doubled in size since 2014 and approximately £2.20 billion (US$3.16 billion) lent to consumers in 2015.
Prepaid cards continued to comprise just a tiny percentage of the consumer complaints received by the CFPB, according to the agency’s latest monthly complaint “snapshot” report. During the month of December 2015, the CFPB received a total of 230 prepaid-related complaints (out of 20,388 total complaints), down 11 percent from the 257 complaints it received in November.
The 15-year-old Safe Harbor data transfer deal has expired, leaving U.S. and European companies at risk for transferring financial and other information across the Atlantic.
Apple Pay is on its way to thousands of ATMs across the country, as Bank of America and Wells Fargo reportedly are working on integrating the mobile payments service into their ATMs. Meanwhile, Chase soon will roll out ATMs that offer cardless withdrawals via the bank’s mobile app.
Financial software provider Misys has appointed Rob Binns as its chief financial officer. Binns joins Misys from HP where he was head of treasury and investor relations. He joined Hewlett-Packard in 2007 from Mercury Interactive and has held a number of senior finance positions in the company including VP Software Field Operations and VP Investor […]
Morgan Stanley has appointed Naureen Hassan as chief digital officer for Wealth Management, a new position in which she will lead the strategy and marketing of digital tools and platforms serving the firm’s 16,000 financial advisors and 3.5 million clients. Naureen Hassan served most recently as executive vice president, Investment Services Segments and Platforms at […]
Market operator Nasdaq has seen revenues from its technology sales increase, with its Technology Solutions division, which makes up 27% of total net revenues reach $146 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, up from $4 million from the fourth quarter of 2014. The exchange’s Market Technology unit, which accounts for 13% of total net revenues, […]
Global investment and private bank, UBS, has signed an agreement to expand its use of the AppDynamics Application Intelligence Platform across its critical applications to supports its digital transformation initiatives. “Using AppDynamics we have been able to improve the speed at which we identified and remediated application issues, as well as avoid incidents in the […]
TSYS continued its push to expand its role in the payments value chain with a big move in the merchant services space, reaching a definitive agreement to acquire merchant solutions provider TransFirst for $2.35 billion from current owner Vista Equity Partners.
U.S. House Republicans have accused the CFPB of bungling payouts meant to settle claims of racial discrimination in auto lending.
The CFPB is accepting applications for membership in all of its advisory groups.
MasterCard has appointed Jenn Ong and Paolo Bortolotto head of consumer credit, Asia-Pacific, and head of debit, Asia-Pacific, respectively.
Mercator Advisory Group has promoted Alex Johnson to director of the credit advisory service, hired Raymond Pucci for the company’s advisory practices division as associate director of research services, and hired Joe Walent as lead analyst for Mercator’s emerging technologies advisory service.
PSCU, a credit union service organization (CUSO), added Phil Davis and Brian Scott to its senior leadership team.
