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Happy Holidays from The Strawhecker Group
This year TSG is celebrating the holidays by donating to food banks both in the states and abroad. Enjoy the brief video below to learn more.
Thank you for your continued support and partnership. We wish you, your colleagues, and your loved ones a safe holiday season and we look forward to a bright 2021!
Cryptocurrency giant Coinbase announced on Thursday that it has confidentially filed for a public offering, becoming the latest in a parade of high-profile startups to pursue an IPO in 2020. Founded in 2012 as a simple way for consumers to purchase Bitcoin, Coinbase has since become a conglomerate of crypto-related business and the standard-bearer for an industry long regarded with suspicion by regulators and the traditional financial establishment. Coinbase’s announcement comes at a time when both the IPO market and cryptocurrency prices are red-hot.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ondot Systems, Inc. (“Ondot”), a leading digital experience platform for financial institutions. The transaction will further expand Fiserv digital capabilities, enhancing its suite of integrated solutions to enable clients of all sizes to deliver frictionless, digital-first and personalized experiences to their consumers. Founded in 2011, Ondot processes more than 1 billion transactions per month and provides digital capabilities for over 30 million cards.
The payments industry is in a very different place than it was at the beginning of 2020. What a start to a new decade, huh? Despite hardships, the industry has continued to show resiliency and adaptability from helping support merchants as they pivot from brick-and-mortar, to helping consumers understand and embrace new payment methods. The payments industry is in motion and we are in for a very exciting 2021!
The Strawhecker Group's (TSG) experts have prepared a dozen data driven trends and predictions that we expect to pick up steam well into the new year. Click here to instantly download our insights (no form completion necessary).
GoDaddy Inc.’s agreement to buy Poynt Co., announced late Tuesday, will broaden GoDaddy’s focus into payment services for online merchants and could make the Web-services company a key player in merchant acquiring, observers and company executives say. The deal, in which GoDaddy has agreed to pay $320 million in cash plus another $45 million in deferred cash payments over three years for Poynt, brings to the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company, best known for domain registration and other services, a 7-year-old company whose point-of-sale devices and related services are processing more than $16 billion in yearly gross merchandise volume directly and through resellers. But GoDaddy’s top brass clearly intend to do more than manage POS transactions.
For a 6-year-old Australian startup that’s only been doing business in the U.S. for two years, Afterpay — with its buy now, pay later (BNPL) interest-free installment loans — has gone from relative obscurity to the front page of the financial section this holiday season. Although the installment concept is hardly new, Afterpay’s platform and growing catalog of retailers has brought fame and fortune to the company and its founders. Among them is 30-year-old Co-Founder and Co-CEO Nick Molnar, reportedly the youngest self-made billionaire in Australia.
China’s central bank has called for wider acceptance of cash in economic activities and vowed to punish those who refuse to accept cash payments in the wake of a widening gap in access to digital services. China’s online payments via barcodes and third-party payment apps such as Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ Tenpay have gained in popularity over the years on government policies to promote innovation. Some merchants and institutions have become reluctant to accept cash due to reasons such as cost control or user experience, with the trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a notice on Tuesday.
A pair of investment firms agreed to shell out $2.3 billion for an ATM operator that’s benefiting from the wave of bank branch closures during the pandemic. Cardtronics agreed to be acquired for $35 a share by Hudson Executive Capital and Apollo Global Management on Tuesday. The all-cash deal is expected to be completed in the first half of next year, according to a statement Tuesday. Banks have shuttered almost 3,000 branches in the past 12 months, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Cardtronics has benefited from the trend by partnering with lenders looking to offer their customers access to cash even when a full-scale branch isn’t available.
GoCardless, the London fintech that aims to become the one-stop shop globally for businesses that want to let customers pay via recurring bank payments, has raised $95 million in Series F funding. According to The Telegraph newspaper, this gives the company much coveted unicorn status. However, I understand the round values GoCardless at just over $970 million, meaning that the 2011-founded fintech is perhaps best described as a soonicorn (presuming these things are important to you).
Klarna announced a strategic partnership with Verifone, a global leader in payments and commerce solutions, that will make Klarna available as the first-ever buy now pay later solution to millions of Verifone devices in the US and Europe. The integration to Verifone’s Cloud Services platform empowers consumers to leverage Klarna’s payment suite including ‘Interest-free payments’, ‘Pay later in 30 days’ with no interest and ‘Financing’ in store. Together, Klarna and Verifone enable retailers to create a personalized and smoother experience for their customers, ultimately unlocking growth, boosting conversion rates and driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Shares of discount e-commerce marketplace Wish fell more than 13% in the company’s market debut Wednesday. The opening trade was $22.75 per share, below its IPO pricing of $24 per share, which was at the high end of expectations. The offering raised $1.1 billion and gave the company an initial valuation of more than $14 billion. Private investors valued the company at $11.2 billion.ContextLogic, Wish’s parent company, filed to go public last month. Last week, the company estimated that it would price shares in the range of $22 to $24, and on Tuesday it priced at the top of that range.
Zilch, a UK-based startup competing with the likes of Klarna in the buy now, pay later market, has picked up an additional $30 million in funding just weeks after securing a consumer credit authorisation with the Financial Conduct Authority. Investors in the round include co-founder of comparison website MoneySuperMarket, Simon Nixon and Curve investor, Gauss Ventures. The latest top up follows a $10 million capital raise in September. Zilch is 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.
Earlier this week, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed the operating budget into law. While most people focus on what is included in the budget, what is notable about this budget is what is NOT in it. Thanks to ETA and a coalition of payments industry and merchants, the Massachusetts budget does NOT include a proposal to create a Real Time Sales Tax (RTST). Through countless phone calls, emails, video calls, and mask-wearing advocates in Boston, the ETA successfully led the charge to keep the proposal out of the budget.
Earlier this year, hackers compromised software made by a cybersecurity company you might not have heard of. The infiltration led to a massive malware campaign that's now affecting US federal agencies as well as governments around the world, according to the security firm and news reports. The hacked company, SolarWinds, sells software that lets an organization see what's happening on its computer networks. Hackers inserted malicious code into an updated version of the software, called Orion. Around 18,000 SolarWinds customers installed the tainted updates onto their systems, the company said.
May require account to read. Credit Suisse Group AG was charged by Swiss prosecutors Thursday for allegedly failing to prevent money laundering through the bank by clients and an employee, in a case stretching back more than a decade. The Swiss attorney general’s office said Credit Suisse in Zurich didn’t comply with provisions against money laundering or the bank’s own internal rules between 2004 and 2008 in opening and monitoring customer accounts. It alleged that those and other flaws in the lender’s controls allowed a Bulgarian criminal organization to launder money through the bank during those years with the help of a bank executive.
Security vulnerabilities have been discovered in POS terminals from Verifone and Ingenico that could have allowed cybercriminals to steal credit card details, clone terminals and commit other forms of financial fraud. Independent researcher Aleksei Stennikov and head of offensive security research at Cyber R&D Lab, Timur Yunusov first discovered the vulnerabilities over the course of 2018 and 2019 in the Verifone VX520, Verifone MX series, and the Ingenico Telium 2 series POS terminals.
Earlier this year, the WSJ reported that Robinhood was under investigation for not disclosing payments it received from market makers to execute the service’s trades. The allegations were yet another black eye for a company that had already found itself mired in controversy, but the case has finally come to a close. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged the makers of the popular stock trading app this morning with “misleading customers about revenue sources and failing to satisfy duty of best execution.” As part of its settlement, Robinhood is required to pay a $65 million civil penalty.
For the first time since spring, U.S. retail sales have declined, raising questions about the strength of consumer spending and how retailers are faring in the all-important holiday shopping season. Economists said the decline was a “warning sign” that the economy was entering a rough patch and in need of a jolt from another round of government stimulus. Retail sales fell 1.1 percent in November as spending on categories like automobiles, electronic stores, clothing and restaurants and bars softened, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday. Economists had expected a smaller decline amid robust holiday sales, driven by online spending.
Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, nearly 10 million more Americans are now unemployed compared with last February, and over one million filed new unemployment claims last week. Are we still in the early stages of a long recession, or will the rollout of vaccines mean we’ll soon see the end of a short-term crisis? How much are people suffering now, and for how long will the effects of the past 10 months persist?
Jobless claims unexpectedly rose last week as states reimposed coronavirus restrictions as lawmakers struggle to push through new government aid, according to a Labor Department report Thursday. The number of first-time unemployment-benefits filers totaled 885,000 in the week ending Dec. 12, the most since the week of Sept. 5. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected initial claims to fall to 808,000. Initial claims for the previous week were revised higher by 9,000 to 862,000. In all, 20.6 million Americans were receiving some kind of unemployment benefits through Nov. 28, the report said.
New data from ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, shows that more than a third of consumers will take at least six months to catch up on missed bill payments due to COVID-19. The study, which surveyed 3,000 U.S. adults, also showed that 3 in 10 consumers in the U.S. saw a decrease in income following the onset of the pandemic, necessitating the need for more flexible payment options from billers.
Paysafe, a leading integrated payments platform, today announced the U.S. launch of Paysafecash™, an alternative payment method for consumers who want to pay online easily and safely using cash. The U.S. eCash solution is powered by the Vanilla Direct™ payment network of InComm Payments, a leading global payments technology company. With the ongoing U.S. issue of financial inclusion and cash’s enduring importance in the market, Americans not able, or wanting, to make credit or debit card payments online can now access Paysafecash™, which was first launched in 2018 and is now live in almost 30 global markets.
Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world's leading companies, and Flywire, a high-growth vertical payments company, announced a partnership which integrates Adyen into Flywire's global network of payment partners. The partnership is aimed at delivering the latest payment functionality to facilitate seamless customer journeys for students, patients, and global travelers. Together, Adyen and Flywire will bolster innovation in payments and drive process improvements for the vertical industries that the two companies collaboratively support, on a global basis.
New Payments Platform Australia (NPPA), the company charged with the oversight of all of the transactions moving through Australia's updated payments system, alongside Eftpos and BPAY, have announced plans to amalgamate. The group of domestic payment organisations said the new company would create a "stronger, unified entity that will aim to reduce costs, increase innovation and efficiency, and be better able to compete with the growing scale of overseas multinational payment platforms". "In Australia, international card schemes and multinational technology providers are dominating the payments sector," the companies said in a statement.
Chase released the findings of its national Digital Banking Attitudes Study—a survey of 1,500 consumers on their use and preferences with banking digitally. Consumers of all ages said that these tools save time and are a safe and easy way to manage their finances from anywhere. "The pandemic has demonstrated that digital banking is essential for consumers of all ages to confidently manage their finances," said Allison Beer, Head of Digital at Chase. "This new research reaffirms our commitment to creating features that make it easier and faster for customers to bank digitally with Chase."
TCF Financial, Minnesota's third-largest bank, is being swept up in another merger — and this time will lose its name. The bank, which moved its headquarters to Detroit from Wayzata when it merged with Chemical Financial last year, said it will join forces with Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares to become one of the nation's top 20 banks with $168 billion in assets. The combined company will use the Huntington name. That will lead to the renaming of TCF branches as well as venues where TCF bought naming rights, including the football stadium at the University of Minnesota and the convention center in downtown Detroit.
Newtek Business Services Corp., an internally managed business development company, announced that it has launched its website for Newtek Payment Systems (“NPS”) at https://www.newtekpaymentsystems.com/. NPS is Newtek’s portfolio company, which offers a cloud-based point-of-sale (“POS”) solution. In the third quarter of 2019, Newtek acquired a 51% interest in POS on Cloud d/b/a NPS which owns a cloud-based POS system for a variety of small- and medium-sized businesses, providing not only payments and purchase technology solutions, but also inventory, customer management, reporting, instant ecommerce solutions, integration into the accounting general leger software, EMV protection, and table management.
Nuvei Corporation, the payment technology partner of thriving brands, announces it has enhanced its payment authorization platform to include a smart and dynamic solution for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) compliance. The Company now offers a variety of customization options to ensure compliant and optimized payment processing flows. Merchants who have not transitioned from 3D Secure 1 (3DS1) to 3D Secure 2 (3DS2) must implement a compliant solution prior to the enforcement deadline for Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) SCA, starting December 31, 2020 in the EU, or face potential fines and a decline in acceptance rates.
NMI, a leading payments enablement technology company, announced the appointment of Jagdeep Sahota to the role of Vice President of Strategic Alliances. In his role, Sahota will be tasked with establishing new alliances and enhancing NMI’s relationships with existing ecosystem partners and commerce marketplaces to drive growth. Sahota brings nearly two decades of payments and fintech experience to this position. Most recently, he served as Senior Director, Strategic Product Partnerships for Salesforce where he was responsible for building partnerships for Salesforce Industries’ financial services and health cloud to extend the reach of its product and build customer-centric applications.
FalconX, an all-in-one platform for institutions trading cryptocurrency, announced an investment from American Express Ventures. American Express Ventures joined existing investors Accel, Accomplice VC, Coinbase Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, adding to the $17 million in funding FalconX announced on May 13, 2020. Trading as principal, FalconX provides institutional clients the ability to access cryptocurrency markets seamlessly through a single platform for trading, credit, and clearing.
Worldline, a Global leader in the payments industry, announced the signing of a major strategic commercial acquiring alliance with ANZ Bank, one of the largest banks in Asia-Pacific and Australia’s 3rd largest acquirer with a c. 20% share of transaction volumes processed in Australia. Gilles Grapinet, Worldline’s Chairman and CEO, said: “The strategic alliance announced between Worldline and ANZ is a landmark transaction for the Group and I am very honored that Worldline has been selected by ANZ to take over the control of its merchant acquiring business as the long term partner of choice to deliver state-of-the-art products and services to its very large portfolio of merchant customers."
IBM announced it has acquired Montreal-based fintech company, Expertus Technologies Inc. The acquisition strengthens IBM's portfolio as an end-to-end digital payments solution provider and further advances IBM's hybrid cloud and AI strategy. "Financial institutions must balance greater demand for secure digital solutions while complying with rapidly evolving regulation," said Mark Foster, Senior Vice President, IBM Services. "Expertus' payment-as-a-service solution expands our hybrid cloud-based payments offerings, transforming payments and treasury management with AI to give financial institutions the flexibility to rapidly innovate and stay competitive as consumer demands evolve."
FIS has announced it is partnering with Quontic Bank to deliver its new Bitcoin Rewards Checking account, launched today. With this announcement, the New York-based digital bank becomes the first FDIC insured financial institution in the U.S. to go live with a Bitcoin Rewards debit card, which allows holders to earn 1.5% Bitcoin back on eligible debit card purchases. Quontic is using the FIS Digital One solution to provide a mobile app with a leading-edge digital experience that will enable robust Bitcoin rewards tracking, reporting and functionality.
Citi has launched a new Citi Fleet Card that utilizes innovative technology to offer a mobile-first experience that has the potential to transform the fuel card market. The solution combines a contactless-enabled card with an award-winning mobile app by The Miles Consultancy. It can be used anywhere that Visa/Mastercard is accepted and allows seamless tracking of mileage, receipts and reports.
FreedomPay, a global leader in Next Level Commerce™, announced a new strategic partnership with Kount, the leader in fraud prevention and identity trust, to offer a fully integrated Identity Trust solution built into FreedomPay’s data-driven commerce platform. Together, the two companies offer businesses of varying sizes, geographies, and verticals a purpose-built fraud prevention solution that adapts to the constantly evolving digital environment.
Chase, the largest co-brand card issuer, and Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline and a Star Alliance founding member, announced a strategic partnership that will make Chase the exclusive issuer of the airline’s Aeroplan U.S. credit card. As a part of this partnership, Mastercard will become the exclusive payments network for the new offering in the U.S. The announcement comes one month after Air Canada launched its transformed Aeroplan loyalty program, which brings more value, increased flexibility, unparalleled access to Air Canada, and flight rewards with over 35 partner airlines.
Smart payments provider and merchant acquiring bank, Credorax, and Malta-based gaming company, Hero Gaming, announced a partnership enabling Hero Gaming to accept and process payments from gamers across Europe, according to a press release. Hero Gaming will have access to Credorax's proprietary acquiring solution including value-added business services, approval rate optimization and analysis and proactive 24/7 merchant account monitoring. Fintechs, such as Credorax, may provide financial services and ensure high0approval rates that inevitably lead to higher conversion rates, Alon Bigler, VP Business Development at Credorax said in the release.
As the winter ski season gets underway, Square announced that its commerce platform now powers payments, e-commerce, and point of sale at nearly a dozen renowned ski resorts across the U.S. and Canada in partnership with POWDR, an adventure lifestyle company on a mission to deliver memorable experiences, enhance people’s lives and have fun doing it. Square’s versatility of software, hardware, and e-commerce allow POWDR resorts to offer hospitality experiences that meet the needs and expectations of their customers, which are continually evolving due to ongoing public health concerns.
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, announced that it has been selected by Silicon Valley based challenger bank Aeldra to power its digital private banking services. The innovative mobile bank founded by neo bank veterans is targeting the highly sought after affluent global customers with household incomes greater than $100,000. Aeldra offers seamless access to U.S. banking and investment with an exclusive “digital private banking” experience to international customers.
Datacap Systems Inc., leading hardware and processor-agnostic integrated payments provider, has completed US EMV level 3 certifications with First Data/Fiserv, TSYS, FIS/Worldpay and Moneris to add support for Verifone’s Engage line of terminals for hundreds of POS packages. Datacap’s Point of Sale integration partners now have plug and play access to the following Verifone Engage terminals.
DoorDash and Payfare are pleased to announce the launch of the DasherDirect platform, a banking solution for DoorDash delivery drivers (Dashers) offering a Business Prepaid Visa Card and mobile banking app. This marks DoorDash's first-ever financial platform for Dashers, providing them with exclusive new rewards and more flexibility and control over their earnings. DasherDirect, issued by Stride Bank and powered by Payfare, offers Dashers no-fee daily deposits of their DoorDash earnings, convenient digital banking functionality and cash-back rewards.
Steve Eazell, a sales executive with more than 25 years of experience in the payments industry, has joined the fast-paced and nimble team at AMP (Advanced Mobile Payment Inc.), a EMV Smart payment technology and solution provider, as VP of Sales in the US.
In his new role, Mr. Eazell will be helping to bring AMP’s mission of Paying Well With Others to life with his extensive knowledge of the industry, while providing great payments experiences to partners and merchants alike.
