TSG sat down with Jeff to learn more about his journey through the payments industry and how CSG Forte is creating a merchant service offering for the future
🌴Florida, here we come!🌴 TSG's Chuck Fillinger is headed to Clearwater for RSPA's Inspire event, and he's ready to meet with you. Email us now to set up a meeting. See you there!
Visa announced a new platform, Visa Acceptance Cloud (VAC), set to revolutionize the way businesses accept payments from their customers. Following the success of the company’s popular “Tap to Phone” solution, VAC will let acquirers, payment service providers, point of sale (POS) manufacturers, and Internet of Things (IoT) players move payment processing software from being embedded in each hardware device to being universally accessible in the cloud.
Sports fans are encountering a new crop of grab-and-go concessions and other changes for purchases at stadiums and arenas, after COVID-19 concerns expanded interest in not just cashless but speedier, contactless transactions. The pandemic spurred innovation, and as more professional sports organizations link up with payments companies, technology being rolled out "is driven a lot by what fans have come to expect," said Geoff Johnson, general manager of Bypass at Brookfield, Wisconsin-based Fiserv.
Financial institutions stepped up to the challenges of 2021, says Kelly Beatty, executive vice president and head of payments at FIS, meeting changing cardholder demands with future-proof tech and flexible payments solutions. "Like 2020, this past year presented a great deal of challenges. I was incredibly proud to see companies around the world step up to these hardships and turn them into opportunities, though. For example, the acceleration of digital solutions and shifting consumer behaviors changed the rules of the game."
Bank of America announced Tuesday that it would reduce overdraft fees for its 66 million consumer and small business clients. Beginning next month, the banking giant will no longer allow customers to overdraw funds at ATMs and will eliminate nonsufficient funds (NSF) fees for bounced checks and other similar transactions. Starting in May, overdraft fees will also be reduced from $35 to $10 on transactions covered by the bank when an account's balance is overdrawn, including via recurring or automatic payment transactions.
Lost in much of the conversation about digital payments, particularly since the onset of the pandemic, is what to do about the cash merchants take in. The Brink’s Co., which has been hauling and securing cash since 1859, says it has an answer, and on Tuesday it announced it also has an agreement with a major payments processor to bring that solution to merchants. Priority Technology Holdings Inc. has agreed to participate in BLUbeem, a program Brink’s announced last month to let merchants take in cash payments and have them credited through an app to their bank accounts through Brink’s.
Today’s digital-first consumers demand more of their merchants. In turn, merchants demand more from their payment services providers (PSPs) — much more, in fact, Carl Churchill, managing director of U.K.-based technology (now part of Fiserv) said. Gone are the days when a few basis points gave PSPs an edge. Today, merchants not only want easy access to a variety of services that help them run their businesses, but also access to a variety of payment methods that consumers want to use to pay them. They also don’t want to be bogged down by an onboarding process every time they expand to a new geography or want to add a new feature or function.
As the Senate holds confirmation hearings on another term for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the Merchants Payments Coalition today called on the Fed to finalize its proposal making it clear that merchants can choose which payment networks process debit card transactions and to also update its out-of-date debit card swipe fee regulations. “We’re quickly coming up on a year since the Fed acknowledged that big banks and the big payment networks are standing in the way of competition over online debit card processing that could save retailers and their customers billions of dollars.”
Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions (Wnet), the premier non-profit organization serving professional women in the payments and fintech industries, today announced that its Board of Directors unanimously elected new leaders to its Board, Executive Committee, and President’s Advisory Council. Intensely committed to Wnet’s mission of professional parity, the 2022 leadership group includes broad industry representation, enabling Wnet to empower women from the financial services industries at every level and increase their career opportunities.
Payments company Checkout.com isn’t just a unicorn — it has closed a $1 billion Series D funding round. Following today’s round, the company is now valued at $40 billion. That’s a stark increase compared to last year’s valuation. With its Series C round, the company raised $450 million at a $15 billion valuation — it represents a 167% valuation jump in 12 months, which is not too bad. Checkout.com is building a full-stack payments company — it acts as a gateway, an acquirer, a risk engine and a payment processor.
PayPal (PYPL) is looking into launching its own stablecoin as the company grows its crypto business, a company spokesman confirmed to CoinDesk on Friday. Sources told CoinDesk in September that PayPal subsidiary Curv was actively working on developing a stablecoin. “We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators,” a PayPal spokesman told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, has released new research which reveals that 55% of crypto owners – rising to 60% of 18-24 year olds – would rather get paid their salary in cryptocurrency. The top reasons for this include people seeing cryptocurrencies as a smart investment, believing that they’ll likely get paid in it soon anyway, and greater financial flexibility. The research ‘Inside the crypto community: Plotting the journey to mass adoption’ surveyed a cross section of 2,000 crypto owners living in the U.S. and U.K., including their attitudes towards the future of decentralized finance.
UK buy now, pay later outfit Zilch is preparing to launch its retailer agnostic digital card offering to European consumers. Zilch only opened in beta in 2019, looking to distinguish itself in the crowded BNPL arena by connecting directly with customers and using soft background credit checks performed by Credit Kudos via Open Banking to determine affordability. With the BNPL market booming, Zilch has racked up 1.7 million customers across the UK and is intent on expanding across Europe and into the US market.
Apple says it will introduce third-party payment options for the first time ever in iOS apps, following South Korean legislation designed to open up the perceived monopolies of Google and Apple’s app stores. The alternative payments will only be available in South Korea and follows the announcement of similar changes by Google last November. Apple currently charges developers a 30 percent fee on any digital purchases made by consumers using iOS apps. This fee has become increasingly contentious for developers, and was at the heart of the huge US lawsuit between Apple and Fortnite developer Epic Games.
Tackling returns is an ongoing issue in the retail industry, and with online retail only picking up, how companies deal with returns is becoming increasingly critical. However, just 14% of retailers were considered leaders in returns, according to Incisiv, which assessed top retailers' returns capabilities and experiences across four key areas: product content and digital experience, returns policy and information, returns and refund process, and 360-degree service. The assessment, dubbed the 2022 Omnichannel Returns Benchmark Index, puts 14 retailers out in front:
Gap Inc. is globally launching an assortment of collectible non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with a gamified digital experience. NFTs are unique digital assets stored on a blockchain ledger which certifies the owner. There is no way for an NFT to have more than one owner, and only the certified owner can sell it. The gamified digital experience accompanying the launch encourages customers to collect Gap hoodie digital art at the Common and Rare levels to unlock the opportunity to purchase the Epic – limited edition digital art by Brandon Sines and a physical Gap x Frank Ape by Sines hoodie.
J.C. Penney Co. on Monday named two new technology executives in a move to boost its digital efforts a little over a year after emerging from bankruptcy. The department-store chain named Sharmeelee Bala as chief information officer, responsible for building tools to serve its “evolving digital footprint,” the retailer said in a press release. Ms. Bala, who starts in February, comes from Gap Inc., where she has held senior technology roles, most recently as head of product engineering. Penney’s interim CIO, Robert Kreft, will remain with the company to support Ms. Bala’s onboarding.
U.S. consumer spending on online shopping during the holiday season was weaker than expected, Adobe Analytics data showed, as supply chain issues caused product shortages and delayed deliveries. Consumers spent a record $204.5 billion online over the 2021 holiday season, an increase of 8.6% from a year earlier, Adobe Analytics said in a report on Wednesday. But the figure was lower than the $207 billion expected by Adobe and marked the smallest rise since the company started tracking holiday spending data in 2014.
Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather are being sued over allegations they misled investors when promoting a little-known cryptocurrency called EthereumMax to their millions of social media followers. A class-action lawsuit filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California accuses EthereumMax and its celebrity promoters of working together to artificially inflate the price of the token by making “false or misleading statements” in social media posts.
Central bank digital currencies, cryptoassets, and privacy are three major priorities for the Electronic Transactions Association in 2022, the payments industry’s top lobbying group announced late Friday. All three are hot-button topics featuring strong opinions on opposing sides, presenting the payments industry with an uncertain roadmap for navigating the issues the topics raise.
The anonymous owners of UniCC thanked the criminal fraternity for their business, citing age and health for the closure. Many other illegal darknet marketplaces have also shut down voluntarily over the winter for unknown reasons. Police say the trend leaves them with mixed feelings. The darknet is a part of the internet only accessible through special browsing software. Cryptocurrency experts at analysts Elliptic traced hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto-payments made to UniCC.
Strong demand and scarce supply for key items such as cars are driving the increases, which are putting pressure on policymakers to act. The US central bank is expected to raise interest rates this year. The rise in borrowing costs is aimed at reducing demand by making purchases such as cars more expensive. December's increase marked the third month in a row that the US annual inflation rate has hovered above 6% - well north of policymakers' 2% target. The last time the pace of inflation exceeded that level was 1982.
Adobe released its final online shopping report for the holiday season covering November and December, finding that consumer spending reached $204.5 billion, up 8.6% year over year. Online shoppers set a record during this latest holiday season, spending more than $3 billion on 38 days in November and December, far surpassing 2020's record of 25 days. Adobe provides its software to dozens of the biggest retailers in the US and anonymously collects data on shopping trends based on one trillion visits to US retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, with a seemingly clear path to a second term heading the central bank, declared Tuesday that the U.S. economy is both healthy enough and in need of tighter monetary policy. As part of his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Powell said he expects a series of interest rate hikes this year, along with other reductions in the extraordinary help the Fed has been providing during the pandemic era.
As Visa continues toward its goal of digitally enabling 50 million small and micro businesses (SMBs), a new research study released – the “Visa Global Back to Business Study – 2022 SMB Outlook” – found that 90% of surveyed SMBs said they are optimistic about the future of their businesses, the highest level of optimism in Visa Global Back to Business studies to-date. While wiping down groceries and quarantining mail might be bygones of an earlier pandemic era, some changes – such as increased use of digital payments – are here to stay: 82% of SMBs surveyed said they will accept digital options in 2022 and nearly half (46%) of consumers surveyed expect to use digital payments more often in 2022, with just 4% saying they will use them less.
Mastercard announced new partnerships with BMO and Moneris Solutions Corporation (‘Moneris’), who have joined Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service. This unique Mastercard solution, available to Canadian business customers in early 2022, is designed to help buyer and supplier partners tackle the systemic challenges of business-to-business (B2B) payments – one of the first open-loop commercial solutions to do so globally and a first of its kind in Canada.
Companies use invoices to pay for many of their major costs, ranging from materials to contract work. Most still rely on solutions built on top of bank transfers or credit cards to complete cross-border payments, which typically take two-five days to complete and represent a $130 trillion global market. Enterprise payments startup Paysail just raised seed funding to build a tool that shortens the cross-border payment process to less than five seconds, the company says.
Square announced the availability of on-demand delivery for Square Online orders in Canada through DoorDash Drive, DoorDash’s white-label fulfillment platform that powers direct delivery for any business. Canada is the first international market to offer on-demand delivery since its US launch in 2020. Given the challenges businesses have had to face in recent months, it’s more important than ever that sellers have access to the tools they need to sell online quickly, efficiently, and affordably.
Railsbank, the leading global Embedded Finance Experiences platform, has launched a new white label Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) credit solution that enables retailers to offer their own branded, fully-integrated BNPL payment experiences. The new solution from Railsbank offers retailers the chance to develop their own branded BNPL option that is customizable, cost-effective and delights customers. In the current landscape, existing BNPL solution providers prioritize their own branding and customer engagement.
Omnichannel and internationalization are at the top of the agenda for many merchants. But especially in physical retail outlets their plans can be challenged by national regulations, for example in the selection of the acquirer. Thanks to the certification of the Next terminals from CCV, acquiring by EVO Payments is now available to Computop customers in 46 countries and overseas territories. With the terminals certified according to the PCI P2PE standard, payment data is highly encrypted "end-to-end" which improves security and relieves merchants from the need for their own PCI certification.
The world's leading fintech player, Soft Space, has announced a new strategic partnership with Japan's only international payment brand, JCB Co. Ltd. ("JCB"). This strategic partnership is the first of its kind in Malaysia for the payment giant and involves a combination of US$5 million investment in Soft Space and a series of business collaborations that are aimed at capitalizing on Soft Space's fintech-as-a-service business model, technology and regulatory knowhow, and JCB's global recognition, vast alliances and brand reach.
In the latest fintech megaround, Brex has confirmed that it has raised $300 million in a Series D-2 round that ups its valuation to $12.3 billion. TechCrunch in October was the first to report that Brex was raising the capital and had achieved decacorn status. Greenoaks Capital and TCV co-led the financing, which brings the three-year-old San Francisco startup’s total raised to $1.2 billion.
Blackhawk Network, a global financial technology company and a leader in payment technologies and solutions, announced veteran information security executive, Selim Aissi, has been named its Chief Information Security Officer. Aissi will lead cybersecurity for Blackhawk, including security strategy, engineering, infrastructure and governance, business continuity and third-party risk management. Aissi brings more than 20 years of experience in numerous leadership positions in the technology and financial industries.
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, named Serena Smith as their new Chief Client Officer. Reporting to Amir Wain, founder and CEO of i2c Inc., Smith oversees global account management for existing and new client relationships, supporting client success and ensuring excellence in customer journeys across all product lines as the company continues its global expansion and rapid growth.
Coupa Software, a leader in Business Spend Management, announced a strategic collaboration with HSBC under its Coupa Pay offering. Commencing with virtual cards, the collaboration will provide European companies with access to a fast, seamless, and secure way to manage payments as part of their comprehensive Business Spend Management strategy.
Valor PayTech, a fast-growing fintech provider of end-to-end, processor-agnostic omnichannel payments solutions, is pleased to announce payments industry veteran Marty McMullian has joined the company’s elite sales and business development team as director of sales. McMullian will focus on building reseller relationships with independent sales organizations and merchant service providers, as well as relationships with independent software vendors.
