Startups in the San Francisco Bay Area brought in 71 percent more investment capital than those in other areas of the U.S., according to new data from FinLab. Meanwhile, London is hosting 10 of Australia’s most promising fintech startups, and Visa Inc. looks to add 2,000 new technology professionals to boost its digital financial services business area.
Mozido has lofty expectations for TradeEase—what the company says is the first-ever platform enabling cross-border e-commerce payments between China and Russia.
Central banks need to play a greater role in the provision of infrastructure for low value payments and existing models revised to balance risk and rewards, according to new research published by the Swift Institute.
In honor of the celebration, NBPCA released some statistics about payroll cards, including how much businesses and employees save using them.
The mobile payments race just kicked into high gear, with Google Inc. today announcing the immediate launch of Android Pay, joining Apple Pay with a little more than two weeks to go before Samsung Pay rolls out Sept. 28 in the U.S.
Digital wallet providers have an easier route to issuer integration with the new MasterCard Digital Enablement Express service, but one analyst suggests it may be more difficult for providers—outside of Apple Pay—to collect issuer fees.
In another indication of blockchain technology’s potential for payments, a group of major industry players have made a $30 million equity investment in blockchain startup Chain Inc.
Paybefore Award-winning Simple, the Portland, Ore.-based branchless bank founded in 2009, this week said it’s eliminating all consumer fees and will rely exclusive on earning interest and interchange for its revenues.
GPR cards with savings features could help lower-income cardholders set money aside for unexpected costs and learn better overall financial habits, a new Boston Fed report suggests.
Consolidation in the payments industry continues as MetaBank expands its presence in the tax services space with the completion of its acquisition of Fort Knox Financial Services Corp., and Finicity Corp. continues its fintech investment by buying payment processor and program manager Aurora Financial Systems Inc.
Global smart card production has doubled in the last 36 months, in part, because of the U.S. migration to EMV this year. And instead of displacing physical cards, new mobile wallets—including Apple Pay—are contributing to higher overall card production rates, according to Europe’s Smart Payment Association (SPA).
MyBank is looking for participants in a pilot phase for its Identity Verification Service to Payment Service Providers and service providers. The pilot will start in mid-November 2015 and run until February 2016. The aim of the pilot is to test the MyBank Identity Verification to ensure reliability, security and the usability of the solution.
Data breaches are getting worse with 246 million records compromised by criminal activity in the first six months of 2015, according to new figures published by digital security company Gemalto. The numbers suggest cyber-crime will remain a top priority for banks for the foreseeable future.
Most U.S. merchants won’t be ready to process chip cards by the Oct. 1 EMV liability shift, but the somewhat alarming numbers don’t tell the whole story, according to card processing industry veteran Ian Drysdale, executive vice president of sales and business development, North America, for U.S. Bank’s Elavon. EMV already accounts for as many as 20 percent of transactions for some merchants, and momentum is shifting fast.
Retailers globally may be facing pressure to adopt new payment technologies, as shoppers demand simpler and more innovative ways to pay, according to MasterCard’s first Retail Social Listening Study. The first-of-its-kind study taps into what consumers are saying on social media about payments and popular retail sectors.
Card-linked offers could help marketers, retailers and issuers as consumers seek more efficient ways to redeem loyalty points and coupons—especially among the coveted millennial demographic—a recent study says.
Post-trade processing company Bloomberg STP Solutions and post-trade and risk specialist Traiana have begun a joint effort to develop a straight-through processing infrastructure for FX options. The partners say it will help to reduce post-trade costs for market participants, which have typically remained higher than execution costs.
The International Securities Services Association adopted a set of compliance principles to address the “critical challenges” posed by financial crime. The new principles aim to establish “a clear global standard for the opening and maintenance of cross-border securities accounts”.
When I joined the company in 2007, Google was just a search engine and Apple had nothing to do with payments. It was a time many prepaid executives have compared to throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks—not everything did.
Australia’s central bank may begin regulating American Express cards in the country, putting at risk the generous rewards points cardholders earn on so-called “companion cards”— credit card accounts linked to two different credit card networks, thus enabling cardholders to earn the benefits of whichever one they choose to use at the point of purchase.
New Delhi’s Urban Development Ministry this week announced it’s reached an agreement for a consortium of agencies to begin developing an interoperable payment card with a prepaid feature for POS purchases and public transportation that eventually could be used with different transit systems across India.
Flipkart, one of India’s largest e-commerce companies, has acquired a majority stake in payment services platform FX Mart Pvt. Ltd. for Rs. 45.4 crores (roughly US$6.9 million).
Jürg Weber has been appointed as the new division chief executive of SIX Payment Services and a member of SIX Group executive board as of today.
PayPal more or less invented P2P payments with its core service enabling individuals to pay one another via email through various funding sources. Now it’s introduced a URL-based approach.
Samsung Pay is off to a brisk start in Korea after its launch there Aug. 20, about five weeks ahead of the mobile payment service’s pending debut in the U.S. on Sept. 28, but it’s nowhere near Apple Pay levels, which hit 1 million registered cards in the first 72 hours.
A former Secret Service agent involved in the investigation against the Silk Road online marketplace has pleaded guilty in federal court to pilfering nearly a million dollars’ worth of bitcoin during the investigation.
BNY Mellon expects to have its SunGard InvestOne system back to normal today following testing over the weekend and the US Labor Day holiday and have caught up on the generation of net asset values for clients.
ACI Worldwide, a global provider of electronic payment and banking solutions, has appointed James C. Hale to its board of directors.
Emergent Payments, a global payments company enabling digital businesses to accept more than 200 secure payment methods, recently has added executives to its senior leadership. The additions include Joseph Podulka, CFO; Rob Freedman, business development director; and Pawan Chawla, vice president merchant solutions and strategy.
Fiserv Inc., a global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced that it has received a vendor award for outstanding performance of anti-money laundering (AML) solutions by Aite Group as part of its “2015 Global AML Vendor Evaluation.”
Payments platform provider Hyperwallet Systems Inc. announced the addition of Jennifer Anderson to its U.S. sales team.
The UK Gift Card and Voucher Association recently has appointed Gail Cohen director general.
U.S. lawmakers keep trying to influence how the U.S. Department of Education handles a proposed rule on campus cards that deliver financial aid dollars. And, the DOE continues to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Dangling $5,000 in free Apple Pay transaction processing for merchants, North American Bancard will launch a new EMV-ready m-POS card reader next month at the Apple Store, while MCX says CurrentC is on the verge of a public pilot in Ohio that will include redemption of national manufacturer coupons.
Fuel savings are considered the most valuable reward by consumers enrolled in loyalty programs, beating out coupons, airline miles and even cash back, a new survey reveals.
Another company has entered the field of players vying to acquire Worldpay Ltd.
Global capital markets specialist, Hatstand, has launched a cyber-security risk assessment service that will enable businesses to better understand the current state of their preparedness against the risk of cyber-attacks and identify any shortfalls in their existing governance programmes.
Service provider Ciber claims to have solved one of the most expensive problems in business: upgrading legacy systems to make them secure and cloud friendly. Its new system, Ciber Momentum, converts the code from languages such as Cobol, Ada and Pascal into a more cloud-ready format.
Digital gifting continues to make inroads, with more than half of consumers surveyed by Blackhawk Network reporting the purchase of an e-gift over the previous year.
Paybefore Award-winning Wirecard, an independent global provider of outsourcing and white-label solutions for electronic payments, reportedly has thrown its hat into the ring to acquire Worldpay Ltd. for £6 billion (US$9.4 billion).
