The 2015 holiday shopping season ended on a high note with a post-Christmas shopping surge fueled by a friendly calendar and shoppers looking to redeem gift cards in stores and online. Sales figures were higher than many observers expected after a somewhat sluggish start to the season—especially in the brick-and-mortar sector, which saw store visits plummet as consumers opted to do their holiday shopping on the Web.
Will the recently launched Mike Tyson Digital Wallet for bitcoin users be crowned the champ when other celebrity-endorsed payments products have failed to take hold? Bitcoin Direct is banking on Tyson’s endorsement of its digital wallet to become as synonymous as former boxing champ George Foreman and his grill.
Hot on the heels of its December Walmart Pay launch, retail giant Walmart is taking additional steps to speed up payments for shoppers. MasterCard announced today that Walmart will accept MasterPass in 2016 across its domestic online properties. The partnership suggests that even as retailers launch proprietary ways to pay, giving consumers more payment options will win out over exclusivity.
With tech giants investing in P2P payments—and millennials driving usage—a promising niche may finally be ready for the mainstream.
Millennials continue to show high interest in GPR prepaid cards and other alternative financial services—but they’re not turning their backs on banks, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Payment Cards Center.
Closed-loop gift cards appear poised for growth for the second consecutive holiday season after 2012 and 2013 declines, thanks in part to last-minute shopping and young consumers, according to a new report from Mercator Advisory Group Inc.
Idaho’s Department of Agriculture is the first government department to launch the eGovExpress digital wallet developed by Olathe, Kan.-based NIC Inc., provider of official government Web portals and digital government services for more than 3,500 federal, state and local government agencies.
CPI Card Group, a global provider in financial and EMV chip card production and related services, announced that Diane Fulton has been appointed to the board of directors.
The CFPB has announced that Mary McLeod will join the bureau as general counsel, upon the departure of Meredith Fuchs, current general counsel and acting deputy director, in early 2016.
FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery has announced the selection of Andrea M. Sharrin as associate director for the agency’s policy division.
Green Dot Corp. has appointed Mark Shifke chief financial officer.
GlobalPlatform, an association which standardizes the management of applications on secure chip technology, has announced its board of directors for fiscal year 2016.
Lindquist & Vennum LLP has hired Andrew R. Toftey to join the firm’s financial institutions practice.
Online money transfer service WorldRemit has announced the hiring of Ian Cole as group chief financial officer.
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PayPal’s One Touch, a fledgling mobile payments tool that enables quick purchases, has attracted 10 million users since its April launch, just as other mobile payment programs strive for dominance.
Rumors are beginning to swirl around Target developing its own m-wallet, but like Walmart, the retailer says it’s still committed to MCX’s CurrentC.
Global spending on cybersecurity will top $75 billion worldwide this year, 4.7 percent higher than 2014—and by 2020, the global cybersecurity market is projected to be worth $170 billion. The surge in spending is being driven by companies seeking to fortify their systems against the ever-evolving threat of data breaches and other cyberattacks. Government security initiatives and new legislation also have contributed to the upswing.
Chinese consumers soon will have a sizable selection of m-wallets to choose from as the country is becoming awash with big players in the m-wallet space. Both, Apple and Samsung Electronics, late last week announced deals with China UnionPay. Meanwhile, the road continues to be rocky for Apple in Australia, where banks have agreed to work with Android Pay, but not Apple Pay.
Up to 10 startups will join the FIS fintech accelerator, giving those fledging companies a chance to learn more about the industry from seasoned professionals.
As the issuance of EMV cards continues to grow, consumers are using their chip cards to buy sporting goods and pay for parking, according to new data from CardFlight.
The CFPB needs to return to its original plans on prepaid regulations and put its proposed rules on a New Year’s diet. By issuing rules focusing solely on disclosure, the CFPB could issue guidance earlier in 2016 that would help consumers, prevent access disruptions, and potentially reduce the size of the landfill needed to for the mountains of noncompliant cards and marketing materials.
Operational risk and cyber-security concerns are converging as a topic for risk managers, who also face a changing agenda resulting from the digital transformation of baking and financial services.
The CFPB yesterday released its “Safe Student Account Toolkit,” which includes a scorecard to help colleges pick the best school-sponsored deposit or prepaid accounts for their students.
In a deal that will bring together two major players in the merchant acquirer processing business, Global Payments Inc. has reached an agreement to purchase Heartland Payment Systems Inc. for $4.3 billion.
Global Processing Services (GPS) has a new testing ground for its payments solutions, now that the Dubai-based processor has licensed the T3 test platform from Iliad Solutions Ltd. to provide functional and load testing capabilities for GPS’s prepaid and debit products.
A new transaction tool for one of the country’s largest e-commerce platform providers will enable more online merchants to accept installment payments from shoppers with credit cards.
A range of financial services and technology firms are backing efforts by The Linux Foundation to develop “an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework”.
R3, the bank-led consortium developing the use of distributed ledger technology in financial services, has added 12 new banks as it looks at how to extend its activities to work with buy-side and non-bank institutions in the New Year.
InComm is tapping into consumer preferences by connecting eBay shoppers with its gift card partners through a proprietary storefront exclusively on the e-commerce site.
Users of the popular Dunkin’ Donuts payment and loyalty app now can use Apple Pay to purchase, gift or reload virtual Dunkin’ Donuts Cards to fuel the retailer’s mobile app. The integration began on Dec. 7, in time for the holiday gifting season and adds another use case for Apple Pay.
China-based payments giant UnionPay has launched QuickPass, a mobile payments service with more than 20 bank partners and acceptance at more than 10,000 retail locations. That deep roster of launch partners could help state-run UnionPay compete with privatelyheld players in the Chinese m-payments sector, most notably Alibaba and Tencent.
London-based B2B fintech company Currency Cloud recently released a trend report revealing the need for faster, less expensive and less complicated ways to make cross-border business payments. With $18 million in funding fueling its U.S. expansion, Currency Cloud says it’s taking on those cross-border pain points.
Cashless payments are growing around the world as more people have access to bank accounts, but only at a slightly faster rate than ATM withdrawals, indicating that cash still has a strong hold.
The UK has made a good showing in a new report, the Fintech 100, with 12 start-ups from the UK’s fintech eco-system featuring on the report’s 50 ‘Emerging Stars’ list – the most from any single country – but the Chinese are fast catching up.
The Bancorp Inc. has named John Chrystal as interim CEO of the company and president of subsidiary The Bancorp Bank. A member of the Bancorp board of directors, Chrystal will replace Frank Mastrangelo, who will continue to serve the company in the newly created role of technologist in residence.
Big box retailer Walmart has joined the plethora of m-wallets on the market with its launch of Walmart Pay, but the retail giant says it’s committed to MCX’s CurrentC. And, even though the move could be a boon for Walmart, analysts say it doesn’t really go head-to-head with Apple Pay and other wallets usable at multiple retailers.
A new partnership between Germany’s Wirecard Group and Alipay will enable Chinese travelers to make POS payments in Europe using the Alipay mobile wallet. The initiative will give European brands and retailers access to the $165 billion Chinese tourism market—and Alipay’s more than 400 million active users.
Swift is planning to launch a global payment innovation initiative, which it says will dramatically improve the customer experience in correspondent banking by increasing the speed, transparency and predictability of cross-border payments. The platform is due to launch early next year.
Alternative trading system Chi-X Canada has been bought by Nasdaq, as part of a push by the global exchange group to grow its presence in North America’s largest country. The deal is expected to go through in Q1 next year.
