A pack of six financial industry groups, including the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association and the Credit Union National Association, argued in a joint 18-page response Wednesday that the Fed’s proposal is “fatally flawed” and should be withdrawn. The comments, not yet available on the Fed's web site, were provided to PaymentsDive. “The Proposal would impose many harms not expressly addressed by the Board in its analysis, which greatly outweigh its limited benefits,” the groups said in their Aug. 11 letter. “Publishing the Proposal, without analyzing these issues, is a neglect of responsibility, and, accordingly, the Board should withdraw the Proposal.”
If you had any lingering doubts about the growth of fintech, take a peek at Tuesday night’s earnings reports from two newly-public companies. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported a 12-fold increase in revenue from a year earlier to $2.23 billion. Not to be outdone, online lender Upstart Holdings said revenue climbed 11-fold from a year ago to $194 million. These numbers are staggering. For companies of this scale to even double annually requires being in the right place at the right time with the right team, and often means a hefty infusion of capital to acquire new customers.
As Amazon and surcharges go in Singapore, might there be signals or tea leaves for other countries? In a statement on Tuesday (Aug. 10), an Amazon spokesperson noted that the eCommerce giant is putting a surcharge in place in Singapore for transactions that use the Visa card. The surcharge equates to 0.5 percent, according to the information sent to PYMNTS. The surcharge will take effect on Sept. 15. In its emailed statement, the company said that “the cost of accepting card payments continues to be an obstacle to providing the best prices for customers."
What does Bitcoin have to do with roads and bridges? A lot right now in the U.S. Congress. One way lawmakers propose to pay for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill the Senate approved Tuesday is by imposing tax-reporting requirements for cryptocurrency brokers, the way stockbrokers report their customers’ sales to the IRS. It could open the way for tighter regulation of cryptocurrency — something the Biden administration is moving toward as it also pushes for tax compliance. The plan could raise about $28 billion in revenue over 10 years, congressional accountants estimate.
Most credit cards these days offer some kind of reward to users, whether it's a percentage of your spending in cash back, airline miles or some other perk. Venmo launched its own credit card last fall, and while it offers up to three percent cash back, the company is now letting users do something relatively unique with that refund. As of this week, Venmo credit card users can automatically get that cash back in cryptocurrency. Once you opt in, you can choose one of four cryptocurrencies to purchase with your cash back: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
As Klarna's billionaire founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski prepares to stage one of the biggest-ever European fintech company listings, a feast of capitalism, he credits an unlikely backer for his runaway success: the Swedish welfare state. In particular, the 39-year-old pinpoints a late-1990s government policy to put a computer in every home. "Computers were inaccessible for low-income families such as mine, but when the reform came into play, my mother bought us a computer the very next day," he told Reuters.
AMC Theaters will accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin for movie tickets and concessions in the U.S. by the end of 2021, according to CEO Adam Aron, who first made the announcement during an earnings call on Monday. The theater chain will also start accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay, but there are still plenty of important questions about AMC’s bitcoin bet that haven’t yet been answered. “I’ve had to learn more in the past six months about blockchain and cryptocurrency than I learned about it in the entire decade before that,” Aron told members of the conference call.
All 21-year-old Taylor Emmi wanted was a cosmetic kit from makeup artist and social media star Jeffree Star after watching a video about the brand on YouTube in October 2019. So she took the $144 leap, and nearly two years later, she’s shelled out thousands on a makeup brand she normally couldn’t afford thanks to a buy now pay later platform known as Afterpay. “Obviously I really like the things and want to collect them, but I would have never been able to have half of it without Afterpay,” Emmi said.
Multinational gaming company Razer is to shut down its e-wallet and card services to focus on B2B payments. In a notice to users, the firm says all wallet and card payment services will be suspended from 31 August, with the full withdrawal taking place a month later. The move marks the end of a multi-year experiment that commenced in Malaysia in 2018 before expanding to Singapore a year later.
The creators of USDC stablecoin have announced plans to become a National Bank and filed with the SEC. According to a post on Circle’s website by Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, the company has begun the process of becoming a full-reserve national commercial bank. The bank would operate under the watchful eye of the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Allaire believes that digital banking could change the entire financial system moving forward, making it safer and stronger.
When Americans went into lockdown last year and began shedding their tailored clothes for sweatpants and leggings, Target was ready. In January 2020, it had debuted its newest in-house brand, an activewear label for women, men, and kids called All in Motion. The pieces, most affordably priced at under $30 an item, were on-trend and made from the latest technical fabrics. During the pandemic, sales of All in Motion exploded. The brand generated $1 billion in revenue for Target in its first year—an extraordinary achievement considering that high-profile activewear startups like Outdoor Voices and Tracksmith have yet to see a fraction of that success.
A quick-service Mexican food chain will pilot a store model that offers enhanced drive-thru service for customers who order via mobile app or third-party delivery platform. Taco Bell will break ground on its new “Taco Bell Defy” store model at a franchised location in Brooklyn Park, Minn. in August 2021. With plans to open its doors to the public by summer 2022, the 3,000-sq.-ft., two-story model was developed in partnership with Minneapolis-based Vertical Works Inc., a design company specializing in verticals including quick-serve restaurants.
As the retail recovery is still underway, the industry continues to evolve with omnichannel taking center stage to redefine how brick and mortar interacts with e-commerce. That’s according to Ethan Chernofsky, chief marketing officer at Placer.ai, who recently presented recent data around retail foot traffic patterns. Placer.ai regularly publishes compliant location analysis data for the retail industry, revealing foot traffic and other retail patterns. Chernofsky also relayed which segments in the retail space are likely to see continued growth and how retailers are playing with new formats to ensure the recovery sticks.
Hackers have stolen some $600 million in cryptocurrency from the decentralized finance platform Poly Network, in what it says is the largest theft in the industry's history. A vulnerability in Poly Network allowed the thief to make off with the funds, the platform said Tuesday, begging the attacker to return the money. "The amount of money you hacked is the biggest one in the defi history," Poly Network wrote in a letter to the attacker it posted to Twitter. "The money you stole are from tens of thousands of crypto community members... you should talk to us to work out a solution."
The Federal Trade Commission has filed an administrative complaint against fuel card company FleetCor for allegedly charging customers “hundreds of millions of dollars” in “mystery fees” connected to their cards. “FleetCor, marketing under the ‘Fuelman’ brand name and through co-branded cards with businesses around the country, falsely told its business customers that they would save money, be protected from unauthorized charges, and have no set-up, transaction, or membership fees,” the commission said in a Wednesday (Aug. 11) news release.
Plaid has settled a class-action lawsuit in which consumers alleged that the company used dubious tactics to gather bank account data to share with fintech clients. Under the terms of the agreement, the San Francisco data aggregator has agreed to establish a $58 million settlement fund and make changes to its business practices and policies. This settlement encompasses five class-action lawsuits that were combined into one. All alleged that Plaid used consumers’ banking login credentials to harvest and sell detailed financial data without the users’ consent.
The consultancy Accenture, which offers cybersecurity services, confirmed Wednesday it had been hit by a cyber incident. The ransomware gang LockBit took credit for the attack. Dublin, Ireland-based Accenture declined to give details on when the incident occurred, its duration or the attack type. "Through our security controls and protocols, we identified irregular activity in one of our environments," the company said in a statement provided to Information Security Media Group. "We immediately contained the matter and isolated the affected servers. We fully restored our affected systems from backup."
Inflation in July is expected to be its hottest since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that the sharp rise in consumer prices has reached its peak, economists say. Economists expect to see an increase in the consumer price index of 0.5% for July, or a gain of 5.3% year over year, according to Dow Jones. That compares with a 0.9% jump in June, or 5.4% on a year-over-year basis, the biggest monthly increase since August 2008
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell for a third straight time last week, the latest sign that employers are laying off fewer people as they struggle to fill a record number of open jobs and meet a surge in consumer demand. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims fell to 375,000 from 387,000 the previous week. The number of applications has fallen steadily since topping 900,000 in early January as the economy has increasingly reopened in the aftermath of the pandemic recession.
Visa released the July reading of the U.S. Spending Momentum Index (SMI), which reached 112.5, up 0.8 points from the June reading of 111.7. A reading above 100 suggests consumer spending continues to expand on a year-over-year basis. The Visa SMI is an economic indicator of the health of consumer spending. The SMI provides insight into what drives upturns and downturns in spending by measuring the breadth of the momentum supporting these trends.
NMI, a leading payments enablement technology company, announced a successful first half of 2021 exhibited by its internal growth through the acquisition of USAePay, key partnership wins and product enhancements to innovate alongside their partners. “We’re ecstatic about the traction we’ve gained so far and our continued ability to enable our ISV, ISO and bank partners with our full commerce solutions,” said Vijay Sondhi, CEO of NMI.
“Our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA results for the second quarter of 2021 exceeded the financial outlook previously provided, underscoring the strength and momentum in our business,” said Philip Fayer, Nuvei’s Chair and CEO. “We achieved total volume, revenue, and Adjusted EBITDA growth of 146%, 114%, and 112%, respectively, over the second quarter of 2020, as we continue advancing our strategic initiatives, expanding global connectivity and market opportunity, delivering full-stack leading edge payment technology solutions to help our merchants connect with their customers by making the world a local marketplace."
“We are proud to report another strong quarter, which included card payment volume and gross profit growth of 28% and 29% respectively, and we are seeing positive trends across all of our businesses,” said John Morris, CEO of REPAY. “We closed the acquisition of BillingTree in June and the integration is going very well. We also continue to make significant strides in building out our B2B business to capture more of the large and underpenetrated B2B payments market, with many recent exciting announcements, including our latest acquisition of Kontrol Payables.”
Global payments giant JPMorgan Chase & Co has launched a real-time payments option that it hopes will increase its edge in the financial industry's battle to handle more of the surging volumes of global digital payments. The new product, called request for pay, lets corporate clients send payment requests to the bank's roughly 57 million retail clients who use its app or website, cutting the cost and time it takes for those companies to get paid, said Cyrus Bhathawalla, the bank's global head of real-time payments.
Paymentus Holdings, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based bill payment technology solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Payveris to accelerate its initiatives to serve financial institutions and expand the reach of Paymentus’ proprietary Instant Payment Network®. Payveris is a leading provider of cloud-based software that enables over 265 banks and credit unions to modernize and simplify bill pay, person-to-person (P2P) and account-to-account (A2A) money movement and fraud prevention through a unified platform.
One Inc, the insurance payments network, announced the appointment of payments executive Ian Drysdale as Chief Executive Officer, effective August 5, 2021. Christopher Ewing, who co-founded the company and guided its strong growth, will assume a new role as Chief Strategy Officer. With more than 25 years of payments industry experience, Drysdale brings the perspective gained from leading high performing teams for payment industry leaders as well as emerging companies. He joined One Inc's Board of Directors in January 2021, serving as Executive Chairman and working closely with the senior leadership team on key initiatives including its payments network buildout and new partnerships.
Lightspeed Commerce Inc., the one-stop commerce platform for merchants around the world to simplify, scale and create exceptional customer experiences, announced that the Company has amended its articles in accordance with the Canada Business Corporations Act and, effective August 6, 2021, has changed its name to Lightspeed Commerce Inc. The Company's subordinate voting shares are expected to begin trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") and the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") under the new name at market open on or around August 10, 2021.
Ambassador Cruise Line, the new British cruise line which launched in May this year, has agreed a new partnership with Paysafe, a leading specialised payments platform. The agreement sees Paysafe provide Ambassador Cruise Line with a payment gateway and acquiring service in order to process payments for guests’ cruise purchases. Ambassador Cruise Line is the first British cruise line to launch since 2010. Ambassador will offer no-fly itineraries that are adult-focused and primarily aimed at the 50-plus market.
The U.S. Payments Forum released its latest Market Snapshot. It provides an overview of the state of the industry, including the persistent uptick in contactless payment methods in a post-COVID climate, the significant successes in EMV implementation in the petroleum industry, how the payment industry is responding to the chip supply shortage, and current Forum priorities and projects. “As the nation reopens post-pandemic, Forum members are highly engaged in sharing information about changes in payments volume and behaviors in recent months."
Citi has launched a digital lending platform designed to help small and medium-sized businesses connect with regional, local and community banks. Citi says that for many SMEs securing a loan involves manual processes that can be time consuming. Meanwhile, local and community banks have limited access to digital tools to reach potential borrowers.
MarketMan, a leading inventory management platform powering the restaurant and hospitality industry, announced a strategic partnership with Heartland Payment Systems, Inc., the global payments and technology leader, to help restaurants of all sizes run their back-of-house operations more efficiently and reduce their cost of goods. This partnership includes a joint technology integration that enables all current and future Heartland Restaurant POS customers to seamlessly add powerful inventory management and supplier ordering capabilities through MarketMan.
TaxBit, the U.S.-based crypto tax software provider, has raised $130 million in a Series B funding round. The round brings TaxBit's valuation to $1.33 billion, making it the latest unicorn in the crypto space. Venture firms Insight Partners and IVP co-led TaxBit's Series B round. Insight Partners is an investor in firms such as FTX, ZenGo, and TradingView. IVP is a backer of companies like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Twitter.
As fraudulent dispute payments become increasingly common, and issuers remain eager to meet the demands of their customers, subscription merchants find themselves struggling to stem the tide of friendly fraud. In a space where a single dispute can cause significant revenue loss, merchants must implement a chargeback solution to protect their revenue. “Subscription billing models, by their very nature, are susceptible to chargebacks and fraud in a way no other model can be,” said Srii Srinivasan, CEO of Chargeback Gurus.
Financial Transmission Network, Inc. (FTNI), a provider of industry-leading integrated receivables, payment processing and cash application solutions, announced that West Virginia University Foundation (WVUF), the nonprofit organization that provides private support for West Virginia University (WVU), has launched FTNI’s ETran Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) solutions to streamline the processing and posting of check-based donations.
