The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to subject “buy now, pay later” lenders to the same vigorous oversight as credit card companies, saying the short-term financing industry harvests consumer data in ways that threatens consumer privacy. Considered a substitute for traditional credit cards, the buy now, pay later model allows consumers to pay off a loan in a few installments, most commonly four interest-free increments.
Payment processor Visa Inc. said Saturday that it plans to start separately categorizing sales at gun shops, a major win for gun control advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting. But the decision by Visa, the world's largest payment processor, will likely provoke the ire of gun rights advocates and gun lobbyists, who have argued that categorizing gun sales would unfairly flag an industry when most sales do not lead to mass shootings.
Financial technology leader FIS® announced that it is revolutionizing the way small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) gain access to embedded payments and finance solutions through software providers with the launch of Worldpay for Platforms™. This new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution combines the power of the global merchant and banking capabilities of FIS with embedded payments technology built on the platform brought to the company through its Payrix™ acquisition.
More than 1,600 merchants including Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. are urging U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation that aims to break the hold that Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have over the credit-card market. The bill, which Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) introduced in July, would give merchants the right to route many credit-card payments over networks other than Visa and Mastercard.
Profit margin pressure was a topic of conversation during Fiserv’s second-quarter earnings conference call, when the company cut the rate at which it expects its profit margin to expand this year, pinning that on increased costs. Chief Financial Officer Bob Hau told analysts at that time that they should “expect the margins to improve into Q3 and more so into Q4,” as Fiserv wraps up spending related to the acquisitions of BentoBox, Finxact and even the 2019 First Data merger.
Pandemic darling PayPal Holdings Inc. has struggled to contend with the reopening of the economy after the pandemic, but Chief Executive Dan Schulman says that the company is back on track. PayPal spent the past few quarters bringing down elements of its outlook as it acknowledged that its pandemic-era projections were out of step with current trajectories. Now the company is cutting costs and showing better growth trends, aspects fueling Schulman’s optimism about the business.
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to acquire a payments startup called Renovite to fend off threats from fintech firms including Stripe and Block , CNBC has learned. The bank, a major player in the global payments arena, said that acquiring Fremont, California based Renovite will speed up its ability to roll out new offerings to merchants.
Popular cryptocurrency blockchain Ethereum has completed its long-awaited switch to proof-of-stake. That upgrade process, better known as “The Merge”, has been years in the making. According to the Ethereum Foundation, today’s transition reduces Ethereum’s energy consumption by 99.95%. Previously, the Ethereum blockchain relied on proof-of-work, a consensus mechanism that requires a lot of computational effort from all the decentralized nodes participating in the blockchain.
Seeking to beef up its buy now, pay later offering, Bread Financial on Monday launched the Bread Pay One-Time Use Card, a virtual credit card that allows consumers to pay for purchases in four installments. The card, which will be issued by Marqeta Inc., can be used by consumers for online and in-store purchases. In-store shoppers at retailers accepting the Bread Pay card can apply for the card at the point-of-sale and use it immediately without downloading a third-party application or the need for integration into physical point-of-sale terminals.
A landmark deal that would have seen payments firm Bolt Financial acquire crypto infrastructure provider Wyre for $1.5 billion has been scrapped by mutual agreement, according to a press release from Wyre's minority equity holder Ether Capital. The deal was expected to close before the end of this year. The companies originally agreed to the deal in April.
As Apple is gearing up for new financial services, Apple Card's head of credit, Abhi Pabba, has left the company. Pabba will join a credit card startup called X1 to be its chief risk officer, a job he is well familiar with. Before Apple, Pabba worked at Capital One on credit card authorizations, analyzing metrics from card holders such as consumer spending, how many credit accounts end up delinquent, and the average of approved credit scores.
Consumers’ willingness to spend overcame inflation again in August as more jobs and higher wages helped ease some of the pressure of continuing high prices, the National Retail Federation said. “August retail sales show consumers’ resiliency to spend on household priorities despite persistent inflation and rising interest rates,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.
One, a fintech company backed by Walmart Inc, will introduce checking accounts to thousands of Walmart employees and a small percentage of its online customers for beta testing in the coming weeks, two people familiar with the matter said. The fintech aims to make the accounts available to Walmart's 1.6 million employees within a year before rolling out services more broadly, the people said. It also hopes to expand its offerings to loans and investments.
Silicon Valley startup AiFi (pronounced like “wi-fi”) is the driving force behind no fewer than 86 “computer-vision powered” autonomous stores in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. AiFi isn’t the first company to pursue autonomous (also called cashierless or checkout-free) retail solutions. There’s stiff competition, including from Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology, and a number of other companies hoping to make their tech ubiquitous in the retail world.
Starbucks unveiled aggressive growth plans at its 2022 Investor Day event in Seattle. The coffee giant said it plans to add 2,000 net new stores in the U.S. by 2025, diversifying its brick-and-mortar portfolio across cafes, pick-up stores, drive thru-only, and delivery-only locations to meet “customers whenever and wherever they want, the company said. In addition, next year, Starbucks will invest $450 million to modernize its existing stores in North America with new equipment and technology that enable greater efficiency and reduced complexity for store employees.
Despite Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance improving significantly in 2020, the cybersecurity threats organizations face are more cunning and evasive than they were even two years ago, the 2022 Verizon Payment Security Report (2022 PSR) reveals. As organizations prepare to implement PCI DSS v4.0, the 2022 PSR provides valuable insights to pivot and adapt to the new Standard.
The FBI has received multiple reports of cyber criminals increasingly targeting healthcare payment processors to redirect victim payments. In each of these reports, unknown cyber criminals used employees’ publicly-available Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and social engineering techniques to impersonate victims and obtain access to files, healthcare portals, payment information, and websites. In one case, the attacker changed victims’ direct deposit information to a bank account controlled by the attacker, redirecting $3.1 million from victims’ payments.
A new multi-country consortium of Europe’s most trusted identity experts has announced its proposal to deliver a large-scale, cross-border payments pilot strongly aligned with the aims of the European Commission’s EU digital identity wallet program. Six countries (Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia and Norway) are part of the consortium, led by NOBID (Nordic-Baltic eID Project). The consortium’s proposal will bring to life the most widely used of the European Union’s priority use cases for the wallet – payments.
By joining the EMVCo Board of Advisors, the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) is bringing the global voice of the merchant to a critical payment security conversation. EMVCo, a global technical body, creates and manages EMV Specifications and programs that enable seamless and secure card-based payments for businesses and consumers worldwide. The organization is responsible for authentication specifications and security technologies like EMV® Chip Contact, EMV 3-D Secure (3DS), and more.
This holiday season, U.S. retail sales excluding automotive are expected to increase 7.1% year over year, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse™ annual holiday forecast. Mastercard SpendingPulse measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. It is not adjusted for inflation. The holiday forecast, along with a look at key economic trends shaping the season, can be downloaded from the Mastercard Economics Institute here.
Just one day after August’s disappointing Consumer Price Index report triggered a meltdown on Wall Street, a separate inflation report indicated that wholesale price increases are showing signs of improvement. The Producer Price Index, which tracks average changes in the prices paid to producers of goods and services, was up 8.7% in the 12 months ended in August, down from 9.8% in July. It’s the second consecutive month that the pace of increase slowed.
Soaring consumer prices aren't fading as quickly as hoped. Inflation in August remained near 40-year highs, defying forecasts of a sharper decline and squeezing the budgets of millions of Americans who are struggling to cover basic costs like food, gas and rent, a government report Tuesday showed. While inflation did ease, the drop from a year earlier wasn't as large as economists predicted.
As Gen Z looks to establish their financial footing, the economic environment and inflation have posed new challenges in achieving their financial goals. This is according to new research published by Bank of America's Better Money Habits exploring this generation’s (ages 18 to 25) distinct approach to money – including their financial priorities, behaviors and challenges. With Gen Z being far more diverse than previous generations, the new research also examines ways in which race, ethnicity and gender may influence their financial priorities and challenges.
Square announces that Spanish-speaking business owners in the United States now have full access to Square’s ecosystem of software, hardware and payment solutions in their own language. Ensuring that Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs can take full advantage of products like Square´s powerful point of sale hardware, accessible financing tools, and seamless staff management solutions represents an important step in Square’s commitment to economic empowerment for traditionally underserved populations like the Latino community.
Stax, the all-in-one payments provider, has launched a new brand under the Stax umbrella: Stax Bill. The solution, an automated billing software for finance leaders at SaaS and other subscription businesses, is a rebrand of Fusebill, which was acquired by Stax in March 2021. Following the acquisition, Stax decided to further align Fusebill within Stax by rebranding it as Stax Bill. This move will make it easier for finance teams to leverage multiple Stax solutions within its one, easy-to-use platform.
Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, has partnered with Cash App (Block, Inc.) to offer Cash App Pay, a mobile payment method, to Adyen’s U.S. customers. Businesses working with Adyen will have access to Cash App Pay as an integrated payment method for their U.S. customers. The payment method will be available online shortly and in-store next year.
ASM Global (ASM) has chosen Clover® Sport from Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, to enhance fan experiences and optimize food and beverage operations at the Caesars Superdome, the Smoothie King Center, and throughout Champions Square in New Orleans. The three facilities are located on a 52-acre sports and entertainment campus in downtown New Orleans.
OvationCXM, previously Boomtown, a global leader in customer experience management (CXM), announces $20 million in a combined Series C and debt funding round, bringing the company’s overall capital raised to date to more than $40 million. The funding round was led by Telstra Ventures with participation from KeyBank, JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund, JumpStart Ventures, Savano Capital Partners, Capital One Ventures, Nyca Partners, Neventa Capital and CIBC Innovation Banking.
Modern Treasury, a software platform that helps companies modernize money movement, and Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking (TxB) announced a partnership to accelerate the shift to embedded payments, helping joint customers seamlessly embed and scale domestic and international payments into their products to drive growth.
PPRO, the leading provider of digital payments infrastructure, has integrated Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider Zip onto its platform, further expanding its Australian payments offering. Zip, which includes Zip Pay and Zip Money, becomes the first Australian BNPL method to be added to PPRO’s digital payments infrastructure and sits alongside other Australian local payment methods.
PayFac-as-a-Service startup Tilled announced a partnership with payments technology company Aevi to further expand omnichannel and card-present functionality for its customers. With this partnership, Tilled and Aevi are positioned for long-term growth together, as both companies work to empower ISVs and vertical software companies seeking to monetize their payments.
Checkout.com, a digital payments platform, will lay off 5% of its workforce, the company announced. The London-based company will lay off approximately 100 people, it said in a statement. The cuts, first reported by Bloomberg, come at a time when many tech companies are slashing budgets and shrinking staff. The layoffs will allow the company to focus on “strategic priorities,” a Checkout.com spokesperson told The Block.
Bottomline, a leading provider of financial technology that makes business payments simple, smart, and secure, announced its acquisition of Nexus Systems, a leading provider of accounts payable (AP) and payments automation software for the real estate and property management industries. The Nexus procure-to-pay (P2P) solution takes a 360-degree view of customer and supplier needs, addressing pain points in the accounts payable process unique to real estate and property management.
Modern payments platform, Dwolla, recently announced the addition of MX to its Secure Exchange solution partners. This collaboration on a tokenized offering provides Dwolla’s clients and reseller partners a more convenient and flexible way for them to access account verification services using MXapi Processor Tokens. MXapi Processor Tokens facilitate secure exchanges with mutual partners without the risk of using sensitive data or the need for third parties in money movement.
