TSG has published a selection of key insights discovered after analyzing 325+ industry players in the newest Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers, sponsored by FIS.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Pineapple Payments and will continue to provide payment processing services to Pineapple Payments merchants, while enhancing its seamless delivery of an array of customer-focused, innovative solutions. The acquisition will expand the reach of market-leading payment solutions from Fiserv, including the CoPilot partner platform, Clover® and Clover Connect, through the technology- and relationship-led distribution channels of Pineapple Payments.
In January, localized payments provider PPRO became the latest fintech-as-a-service startup to hit a billion-dollar valuation when it closed $180 million in funding. As a mark of how payments and e-commerce continue to be major areas of focus in the global economy, PPRO is extending that round by another $90 million and adding in two new investors to its cap table. The financing is coming by way of strategic backing from JPMorgan Chase and Eldridge.
News late Wednesday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is inquiring into a newly popular alternative for going public comes as payments firms increasingly turn to the method in lieu of a traditional public offering. Reuters reported late Thursday the SEC is contacting Wall Street financial institutions to ask about their activities involving blank-check firms. These so-called SPACs—special purpose acquisition companies—have acquired or announced deals with at least half a dozen payments firms since July 2019, with the largest deal involving a $9-billion acquisition of Paysafe Group expected to close this month.
Though Democratic leaders have endorsed the concept of a government-operated digital currency to give underserved consumers more banking options, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated the central bank will take its time to study the idea before moving forward. Speaking on a virtual panel hosted by the Bank for International Settlements Monday morning, Powell said it is better to weigh all the factors that would go into a central bank digital currency than racing to become the first county to offer one to the public.
Financial technology group Feedzai said on Wednesday it had raised $200 million in a round led by investment company KKR valuing the startup at more than $1 billion. Existing investors, including Sapphire Ventures and Citi Ventures, also participated in the round, the San Mateo, California-headquartered company said. Feedzai develops artificial intelligence and machine learning technology that helps banks and other financial firms to spot and prevent payments fraud, money laundering and other types of illicit activities.
Tesla has begun accepting bitcoin as payment from car buyers in the continental US, and CEO Elon Musk said the company plans to expand the new payment option to other countries later this year. Musk announced the news on Twitter today. "You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin... Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency," Musk wrote. Tesla recently bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin, a move that sent the cryptocurrency's price soaring.
For Stripe, the billion-dollar payments company that scored a $95 billion valuation this month — the highest ever for a Silicon Valley company — anticipation for a go-public strategy is on the rise. Investment bankers will be courting Stripe management pitching IPO ideas. Investors will be anxious to know when and how it might happen. And the impulse to cash in at top valuations will swell with each day U.S. stocks reach new highs. A strong business like Stripe, which has built its payments and internet tools company into an e-commerce juggernaut over the past decade, has options for going public.
Google’s latest investment in India is a startup that is helping businesses come online. One-year-old DotPe, a Gurgaon-based startup, said on Friday it has raised $27.5 million in its Series A financing round. The round was led by PayU, with participation from existing investor Info Edge Ventures and Google. The young startup, now valued at about $90 million, helps brick and mortar stores sell to customers online and collect payments digitally.
May require account to read. Revolut Ltd., one of Europe’s largest startups, has asked U.S. regulators for a banking license in a effort to capture more of the country’s switch to online financial services. The company aims to provide more traditional products such as loans and deposit accounts as well as business banking alongside its basic services, which it launched in the U.S. a year ago. A license would let Revolut offer American customers “all the essential financial products and services they can expect from their primary bank,” said Nikolay Storonsky, who founded the company in 2015.
Fidelity has made an application with the U.S. securities regulator to offer a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to public filings. The Block was the first to report on the application. The asset management firm lodged paperwork for the Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust, which would track the price of Bitcoin using data from predominantly U.S.-based exchanges: Coinbase, Gemini, ItBit, Kraken and Bitstamp. "An increasingly wide range of investors seeking access to Bitcoin has underscored the need for a more diversified set of products offering exposure to digital assets,” a Fidelity spokesperson told Bloomberg.
Atlanta-based Greenwood, a digital banking startup designed for Black and Latino consumers and businesses, said on Thursday that it had raised $40 million from a host of U.S. financial institutions. They included Truist Financial Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co. The startup will use the cash injection to build the business, with plans to launch its first products this summer, Ryan Glover, Greenwood’s Chairman and co-founder said in an interview.
Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company, announced Friday it has closed on $100 million in Series D financing, doubling its valuation to over $2 billion. The round comes just four months after the company secured a $100 million Series C round at a $1 billion valuation. Paradigm led the latest funding event while existing backers Addition and Ribbit doubled down on their investment in the company. TIME Ventures, Marc Benioff’s investment fund, also participated in the latest financing, which brings Chainalysis’ total raised to $265 million.
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) released the third edition of the ETA Payment Facilitator Guidelines to reflect the latest U.S. card network rule changes and applicable laws and government regulations for card acceptance. The Guidelines provide guidance to payment facilitators on how to maintain strong underwriting and risk-monitoring policies and procedures to serve small merchants. “To bring new merchants into the payments ecosystem, payment facilitators need to maintain robust risk management programs to keep fraud at bay,” said Jodie Kelley, CEO of ETA.
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into Visa Inc.’s practices regarding debit-card transactions. The department is looking into the network’s rules for routing transactions both in stores and online, according to a person familiar with the matter. Representatives for the Justice Department declined to comment. “The U.S. Department of Justice has informed Visa of its plans to open an investigation into Visa’s U.S. debit practices” and is cooperating with the department, the company said in a regulatory filing last Friday afternoon.
Fraud linked to the Covid pandemic has cost Americans $382 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission. As of Tuesday, more than 217,000 people had filed a coronavirus-related fraud report with the agency since January 2020, according to federal data. The median loss was $330. However, losses skewed higher for seniors — $500 for people in their 70s and $900 for those in their 80s. Criminals have used multiple avenues to steal money from unsuspecting Americans, including crimes around financial relief like stimulus checks and unemployment benefits, fake treatments for Covid-19 and fraudulent charities.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) provided to Congress the Consumer Response Annual Report for 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the consumer financial marketplace is reflected in the increase of complaints submitted to the CFPB. The CFPB handled approximately 542,300 complaints last year—a nearly 54% increase over the approximately 352,400 complaints handled in 2019. “The pandemic has been among the most disruptive long-term events we will see in our lifetimes,” said CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio. “Not surprisingly, the shockwaves it sent across the planet were felt deeply in the consumer financial marketplace.
The amount of money lost to victims of authorized push payments fraud in the UK rose to £479 million in 2020, as criminals used the Covid-19 pandemic to target people online. The APP fraud losses documented by UK Finance are up five per cent on the previous year, with the number of cases increasing by 22% to almost 150,000 in 2020. Banks were able to return £206.9 million of the losses from APP fraud to victims, over three quarters more than the sum returned in 2019.
Consumer spending fell 1% last month, the Commerce Department reported Friday, the biggest drop since last April when spending tumbled 12.4% as the country was broadsided by the global pandemic. Incomes fell a record 7.1% last month, a period when the government was completing the bulk of the $600 payments from December's $900 billion relief bill. However, both are expected rebound strongly this month as more people are vaccinated and flush with a second round of pandemic aid, this time in larger, $1,400 individual payments.
The U.S. economy expanded in the fourth quarter at a revised 4.3% annual pace — a touch higher than previous reported — and even faster growth is expected in the months ahead. Gross domestic product was raised from the previous reading of 4.1% mostly because of somewhat higher business investment, revised government figures show. The economy appears to be speeding up again after slowing toward the end of the year following a record coronavirus outbreak. Economists polled by Dow Jones and WSJ predict GDP will increase at a 4.9% clip in the spring and 7% in the summer.
First-time claims for unemployment insurance unexpectedly fell sharply last week amid signs that hiring has picked up in the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Claims totaled 684,000 for the week ended March 20, the first time the number has been below 700,000 during the Covid-19 era. The level was a substantial decline from the 781,000 from a week earlier and was the lowest since March 14, 2020, just as the pandemic had begun. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting claims to total 735,000.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made consumers in the U.S. more adventurous in trying out new banks, according to a new study from financial technology leader FIS®. FIS surveyed more than 1,000 Americans about their banking and financial habits in the past 12 months since the pandemic began. The results showed that 1 in 5 people started using a new banking provider in the past 12 months. Thirty-three percent of those who joined a new bank were looking for better benefits such as higher savings yields and rewards. while seven percent of consumers said they did so to access COVID-19 relief according to the survey.
Mastercard and Nuvei Corporation announced that Mastercard Send will be integrated into Nuvei's payment technology platform through its wholly owned subsidiary. The move strengthens the relationship between the two parties and provides a powerful new tool to Nuvei clients. Mastercard Send is a global push payments platform that enhances worldwide payout capabilities for businesses by speeding up the process considerably with no sacrifice to security. Available to Nuvei clients via their existing payment integration, this service is expected to benefit businesses in industries ranging from insurance to ride-sharing.
The business-to-business (B2B) payments firm AvidXchange is eyeing an initial public offering (IPO) that could give the North Carolina company a valuation topping $7 billion, Reuters reported on Tuesday (March 23), citing sources. Backed by Mastercard and PayPal Co-founder Peter Thiel, AvidXchange has tapped Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Barclays to prepare the IPO, sources said. The company, which was founded just over two decades ago, offers software that automates payments, invoicing, and accounting for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).
Shift4 Payments, a leading provider of integrated payment processing solutions, is proud to announce its designation as the Payment Processing Partner of the San Diego Padres. All payment transactions at Petco Park will utilize Shift4’s fully integrated suite of secure payment technologies, including innovative contactless solutions. Shift4 offers a uniquely compelling value proposition to businesses and venues of all types by consolidating multiple vendor relationships into a single-source solution to streamline operations, simplify support, and reduce costs.
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced that its Skrill digital wallet has expanded its cryptocurrency offering to the U.S. in partnership with Coinbase, the digital currency platform provider. The deal sees Coinbase provide a new cryptocurrency white label solution to Skrill, continuing the digital wallet’s U.S. expansion by enabling customers across 37 states and territories to easily buy and sell multiple cryptocurrencies.
Discover, a leading digital bank and payments company, and Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet), the national payments network and shared central infrastructure for payment services in Malaysia, have signed an agreement that will greatly expand acceptance for Discover, Diners Club International and network alliance cardholders in Malaysia. The agreement complements Discover’s strategy of growing acceptance in Asia Pacific to support existing partners in countries such as Singapore, India, China and Japan by potentially opening acceptance at 10,000 ATM locations and more than 570,000 point-of-sale terminals throughout Malaysia.
Stripe announced that fundraising platform GoFundMe has deployed its technology to ensure those in need are able to receive donations from those able to support quickly and efficiently. Working with Stripe further simplifies the fundraising experience on GoFundMe by helping to power a smooth donation experience, the swift withdrawal of donations by fundraiser organizers, and advanced trust and safety operations. The economic and social upheaval of the last 12 months has driven an extraordinary amount of need and generosity on the GoFundMe platform.
Newtek Business Services Corp., an internally managed business development company (“BDC”), today announced that David Simon has joined Newtek Merchant Solutions (“NMS”), one of Newtek’s payment processing portfolio companies, as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Simon will also join Newtek Business Services Corp. in the role as advisor to Newtek’s CEO. Mr. Simon comes to NMS with over 25 years’ experience in financial services and banking, with an extensive background in electronic payments, banking, and credit, debit and prepaid cards across consumer, small businesses and corporate finance sectors.
UATP announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office indicated it will grant a patent for UATP's technology underlying Ceptor, UATP's in-house built Alternative Forms of Payment (AFP) processing solution. Ceptor was built to allow UATP Merchants to connect easily to AFPs offered by UATP without incurring significant integration costs. "We wanted to build technology both to advance and to simplify the process for our Merchants seeking to accept AFPs and we created Ceptor as the easy integration option," stated UATP President and CEO, Ralph Kaiser.
MoneyGram International, Inc., a global leader in cross-border P2P payments and money transfers, announced the launch of 'MoneyGram as a Service,' a new business line that enables other companies to access its leading global money transfer network through its powerful API-driven infrastructure and best-in-class technology. With this launch, enterprise customers can now leverage the Company's core capabilities as productized service offerings to meet their various business needs and quickly add services and scale.
