TSG will be heading to Vegas for ETA's TRANSACT event in just a couple of weeks. Will you be attending the industry's biggest payments meetup? We are excited to be in person again after two years and would love to catch up and discuss your goals for the year. Reach out and schedule time with the team today!
Apple plans to build its own in-house technology and infrastructure for financial services, according to a Bloomberg report citing people with knowledge of the matter. The initiative is internally codenamed "Breakout" as an allusion to the idea of users breaking free from the current establishment players in the financial system. Apple has long held to a philosophy of controlling as much of the user experience—and its own pipeline—as possible, believing this method offers the dual benefits of better experiences for customers and a bigger slice of the revenue pie for Apple. That control also means Apple can be less affected by surprises or failures from external partners.
Voice of the Industry: Mark Waring, Senior Associate at The Strawhecker Group (TSG), tackles the importance of doing cross-border commerce for companies looking for a competitive advantage, as well as the prominent industry tendencies.
One of the continuing trends in the global payments ecosystem is the growth of merchants who sell across the border from the country in which they started, and then get paid as easily as they do in the home market. In this article, we’ll look at why North American merchants want to sell internationally, and how they are increasingly enabled to do so by processors and other fintech companies.
Amazon has chosen to renew a deal allowing JPMorgan Chase to issue the tech giant’s flagship rewards credit card, ending months of heated negotiations, CNBC has learned. The Amazon Prime Rewards card was one of the industry’s most highly coveted co-brand deals, a rare prize because of the massive scope of Amazon’s loyalty program, with its estimated 150 million U.S. members, according to people with knowledge of the talks. While JPMorgan has issued Amazon’s card since it was little more than an online bookseller two decades ago, that didn’t stop Amazon from soliciting bids to replace the bank in mid-2021.
Visa urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take a cautious approach to regulating buy now-pay later services in a March 25 filing with the federal agency. "Given the variety of BNPL products available today and the existing requirements already in place, Visa believes that the CFPB should carefully consider the impacts of new policies, rules or guidance on the marketplace for BNPL," the San Francisco-based company said in the filing.
Mega technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Meta and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, occupy the tricky space of being both a friend and perceived threat to traditional financial institutions. On one hand, their credit cards, buy now/pay later products and prospective deposit accounts depend on traditional financial institutions or fintechs to get off the ground. Banks are also increasingly migrating to some of their public cloud services. On the other hand, they periodically play with the idea of rolling out financial products to their massive customer bases that would compete with bank partners.
They may not know the term, but your customers likely want embedded commerce options. Contactless payment capabilities, which are now table stakes, are just one part of the larger embedded commerce vision, which integrates purchase options seamlessly into an engaging customer experience. The pandemic sharply accelerated an already ongoing shift to embedded commerce. PwC projects cashless transactions volumes will reach $1.9 trillion by 2025 and digital payments per person will triple by 2030. Like many other trends that originated with consumers, embedded commerce is raising business customer expectations.
Despite rampant inflation and supply-chain shortages that have made certain products hard to come by, gift cards, whether they are physical or digital, remain popular with consumers. Indeed, 58% of consumers plan to purchase more gift cards as an alternative to tangible products due to inventory shortages in 2022, according to Fiserv Inc.’s Q1 2022 Gift Card Gauge. At the same time, 46% of consumers view gift cards as their “go-to” alternative to tangible gifts.
Visa surprised the European fintech industry last year when it announced that it would acquire Tink for €1.8 billion ($2.15 billion at the time of the deal). Klarna now wants to compete directly with Tink with a new business unit that has its own brand — Klarna Kosma. Like Tink, Klarna offers an open banking application programming interface (API) with Klarna Kosma. Tink and Klarna are also both headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. There are other open banking API companies, such as TrueLayer and Plaid. And it’s been a competitive space as Visa also tried to acquire Plaid but that deal fell through.
Cashless payment solutions provider Dapio is bringing ‘Tap to Pay’ to Android users in the UK and Europe next month. The company, formerly Paymob, raised $3.4m in growth funding to launch the app on the Google Play store. The raise was led by Flutterware, alongside Techstars, PactVC and venture partner at Asymmetry Ventures Daniel Gould. Dapio aims to bring the frictionless payments app to microbusinesses and the millions of sole traders in the UK that make up 75 percent of all businesses.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) is in talks to acquire 2TM, owner of Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange, the Estadão newspaper reported Sunday. According to the report, which did not cite sources, negotiations between Coinbase and 2TM have been taking place since last year and an agreement could be announced in late April.
PayPal acquired Happy Returns last May for an undisclosed sum. Now, it's integrating Happy Returns services into its merchant checkout system, further solidifying a link that began before the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent boom in e-commerce returns. Previously, PayPal and other investors injected $11 million into Happy Returns in 2019. Happy Returns has consistently added more partnering retailers to its lineup. In 2019, the company expanded its partnership with Cost Plus World Market after piloting its Return Bars at 11 locations.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to drone delivery as companies like Amazon and Chili’s pilot the pilot-less aircraft tech with the promise of faster (and more environmentally friendly) transportation to your doorstep. Amazon plans to enlist 1,300 shoppers in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, to test Prime Air drone delivery starting in September, Insider reported this week. Consumers can choose from ~3,000 products weighing less than five pounds, spanning pharmaceutical, beauty, and pet goods, according to documents Insider obtained.
Helping drive record sales has been the company’s success in attracting a subset of digitally savvy millennial members during the pandemic. These consumers are also strongly represented in what Kathryn McLay, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, termed their new Super Bowl cohort — the subset of consumers who became members thanks to the retailer’s wildly popular (and very first) Super Bowl ad. Starring Kevin Hart, the ad sought to “concierge” consumers through Scan & Go, said McLay during a Shoptalk keynote in Las Vegas on Sunday, as it’s often mistaken for self-checkout technology.
Walgreens reported second-quarter sales and earnings that beat analysts’ estimates as the omnicron variant drove customers to its stores for COVID test kits and booster shots. The company said it administered 11.8 million vaccinations (62.8 million to date) and 6.6 million tests in the second quarter. Walgreens reported net income of $883 million, or $1.02 per share, for the quarter ended Feb. 28, down from $1.026 billion, or $1.19 per share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.59 were ahead of analysts’ estimates of $1.39.
Thousands, if not millions, of people could have lost money in the second-largest crypto hack in history. Ronin Network, a key platform powering the popular mobile game Axie Infinity, has had $615m (£467m) stolen. In the game, players fight cartoon pets called Axies to earn cryptocurrency. The game is hugely popular with millions of players around the world hoping to win cryptocurrency and collect the game's non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Its particularly big in the Philippines, where playing has become a full-time and potentially lucrative job.
European Union lawmakers voted in favor of controversial measures to outlaw anonymous crypto transactions, a move the industry said would stifle innovation and invade privacy. More than 90 lawmakers voted in favor of the proposal, according to documents seen by CoinDesk. The proposals are intended to extend anti-money laundering (AML) requirements that apply to conventional payments over EUR 1,000 ($1,114) to the crypto sector.
The White House released its $5.8 trillion proposed budget today for the fiscal year 2023 - an 11% increase over 2022 that includes billions to bolster cybersecurity defenses for federal departments. The Biden administration said it had "reprioritized cybersecurity by strengthening resilience at home and accelerating cooperation with allies and the private sector." This move, the administration says, will further strengthen military resources and enhance cyber resiliency. Money dedicated to cybersecurity also will aid in protecting against attacks launched by threat actors and their malicious campaigns.
U.S. consumer confidence bounced back in March and remains high, though consumers’ short-term outlook is not quite as rosy. The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index — which takes into account consumers’ assessment of current conditions and their outlook for the future — rose to 107.2 in March from 105.7 in February. The board’s present situation index, which measures consumers’ assessment of current business and labor conditions, also rose this month to 153 from 143 in February.
Kabbage from American Express issued the fifth installment of its Small Business Recovery Report, which tracks the recovery trends and growth outlook of U.S. small businesses. Polling 563 small business leaders, the latest report exhibits how small businesses are adapting to a shifting market as they look beyond pandemic-wrought challenges, adjust for inflation and modify hiring approaches.
It’s getting more expensive by the moment to buy a home in America. Mortgage interest rates, historically low during most of the pandemic, are rising faster than they have in decades. And that’s on top of home prices that have soared across the country over the past two years. Put the two trends together, and the impending monthly mortgage payment for home buyers — combining principal and interest payments — is really taking off.
Credit card giant Visa has launched an NFT creator program in an effort to bring small businesses into the digital economy. “We’ve seen rapid growth in the NFT ecosystem over the past year,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, told TechCrunch. “We think NFTs represent a new form of e-commerce.” The idea of a small business is evolving from the traditional “brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop shops” to include other independent businesses with creators and entrepreneurs who want to build digital-focused companies and harness new tools like NFTs, Sheffield said.
Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, has announced its expansion beyond payments to build embedded financial products. These products will enable platforms and marketplaces to create tailored financial experiences for their users such as small business owners or individual sellers. The suite of products will allow platforms to unlock new revenue streams and increase user loyalty.
Mastercard announced that Chad Wallace has joined the company’s Global Product and Engineering organization as Executive Vice President of B2B Solutions and a member of the company’s Management Committee. He will oversee the company’s industry-leading commercial product offering, including its corporate travel and expense (T&E) management products, purchasing cards, virtual cards, B2B payments, and fleet card products, with a focus on enabling the digital transformation of corporate payments across accounts payable, procurement and treasury.
MetaBank®, N.A., an industry-leading financial empowerment company, announced it is changing its name to Pathward, N.A. To unite the company under a single identity following a series of strategic acquisitions, MetaBank initiated a brand strategy review last year. The new name, Pathward, is born out of the company’s purpose to power financial inclusion for all and its commitment to providing a path forward to people and businesses so they can reach the next stage of their financial journey.
Worldline, a global leader in payments, has announced the official launch of its partnership with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection. The collaboration will enable Worldline’s enterprise-level customers to deal with increasing challenges caused by online payment fraud. As the first provider within the payments industry to fully adopt and integrate this Microsoft fraud screening solution, Worldline is now able to offer a next-generation hybrid fraud solution that can help increase accuracy and efficiency far beyond that of traditional rules or advanced machine learning alone.
Financial technology startups raised $121.6 billion last year — up 153% year-over-year in terms of global VC deal value — and include a range of outfits, from payments companies to digital banks to corporate spend players. It’s not as typical for us to hear, though, about venture capitalists pouring millions of dollars into a traditional bank. But today, Cross River Bank told TechCrunch that it has raised $620 million in funding at a valuation north of $3 billion.
CSG Forte, a CSG® company and the leader in complete and customizable digital payments, announced a strategic partnership with Velosimo, the only provider of no-code, cloud-native, technology connectors. This partnership enables government agencies to easily connect and augment their technology stacks with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendors via a single processing partner.
Finicity, a Mastercard company, and Fiserv, Inc., both leaders in open banking technology, are advancing the future of open finance through secure data sharing. A data access agreement between the companies will allow thousands of Fiserv financial institution clients to enable consumers to provide clear and explicit permission to securely share their account information with apps that use Finicity’s open banking platform, offering more payment choices, access to an expanding range of financial services experiences, and improved overall financial literacy and wellbeing.
Santander is launching a new and innovative international payments solution for companies. Santander's SME and corporate clients in Spain will be able to use the One Trade solution to make instant international payments in Brazilian real to recipients in Brazil from online banking. This innovation, offered for the first time by any bank in Europe, will be rolled out to customers in additional markets in the coming months. One Trade is part of PagoNxt, a company that brings together all of Santander’s most innovative and disruptive payments businesses.
Digital payments and financial service provider Pine Labs has raised another $50 million in funding, at a reported valuation of $5 billion. London-based private equity company Vitruvian Partners, a backer of companies like Byju’s, has participated in the latest round. According to the regulatory documents filed in Singapore, Pine Labs’ latest funding round reportedly includes a $15 million employee stock ownership programme (ESOP) buyback. The development was first reported by The Economic Times.
Corvia, Inc., a fintech company focused on making the complex simple by complementing world-class technology with strong business and regulatory acumen, announced it is No. 30 on Inc. magazine’s third annual Inc. 5000 Regionals Southwest list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies based in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Southwest region economy’s most dynamic segment–its independent small businesses.