Last week, the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) hosted TRANSACT, the biggest meetup in the digital payments industry. Taking place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, it was the first time TRANSACT has been in-person since 2019. With over 2,500 payments professionals in attendance, the industry was happy to be back to face-to-face interactions. In fact, many attendees admitted they didn’t know how much they missed the in-person conversations and mentioned that there was no substitute for getting together at the event.
TSG, a Gold Sponsor of TRANSACT, had several team members in attendance. The team visited the exhibit hall, speaking sessions, the ETA Star Awards dinner (congrats to the winners!), and was host to a record number of meetings. Throughout the hustle and bustle, the team compiled commentary to highlight key themes that will be prevalent as we continue through 2022.
Payroc WorldAccess, LLC, (“Payroc”), a global payments leader, has announced the acquisition of Worldnet, a leading provider of unified, global omnichannel payments solutions for ISVs. Incorporating Worldnet’s technology solutions into the Payroc platform further propels Payroc into the ISV and embedded payments space. This new combination makes Payroc one of the premier omnichannel payments technology solutions for a wide array of SaaS and ISV providers.
PayPal and Venmo are increasing their instant transfer fees for both consumers and merchants in the United States in the coming weeks, PayPal announced on Thursday. Instant transfers allow customers to transfer their money instantly to a bank account or debit card for a fee. For personal accounts on PayPal and consumer and business profiles on Venmo, users will pay 1.75% of the transfer amount, with a minimum fee of $0.25 and a maximum fee of $25.
Elavon, a wholly-owned subsidiary of U.S. Bank and one the largest payments processors globally, today appointed Pari Sawant as Chief Product Officer. As Chief Product Officer, Elavon, Sawant will oversee the organization’s global product management efforts and a worldwide team. Sawant joins Elavon with more than 20 years of experience as an executive and senior leader in consumer, SMB and enterprise software. This work encompassed global product management, financial management, marketing, analytics, AI and product development.
Several Russian banks plan to issue payment cards that use the network of China UnionPay as well as that of home-grown payment system Mir, after Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc joined other Western firms in suspending operations in Russia. UnionPay and Mir are among few options left for Russians to make payments abroad since Russian banks were isolated from the global financial system following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation".
The National Retail Federation on Monday called on Visa and Mastercard to cancel credit card swipe fee increases that are scheduled to take effect this month. The NRF cited a letter from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress saying higher fees would add to inflation. American consumers are struggling under the worst inflation in four decades and swipe fee increases would only make the situation worse, according to the NRF.
Raj Dhamodharan started working at Mastercard in 2010 when bitcoin and crypto were seen as fringe technologies. Fast forward a decade: Dhamodharan is now Mastercard’s point man for crypto, in charge of the payments giant’s game plan for a fast-moving trend upending financial services. It’s a challenging role given the view that crypto poses a serious threat to Mastercard and archrival Visa. Investor Chamath Palihapitiya predicted in December that the two companies would be the “biggest business loser for 2022,” calling them a "completely contrived duopoly that doesn't need to exist."
May require account to read. Mark Zuckerberg has pinned his hopes on commerce to save his business from stagnating user engagement and decelerating advertising revenue growth. But in the massive market of India, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has fallen far behind in mobile payments, which serve as the crucial last step in closing an online sale. It needs to get its act together quickly if it doesn’t want to lose out to Google and Walmart in the race for controlling digital payments in the world’s second-largest internet market.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday that Americans are spending heartily, even as inflation continues to roil the economy. “In the month of March ’22 versus March ’21, the consumer … spent about 13% more than they did last year,” Moynihan said Tuesday in an interview on “Mad Money.” “But importantly, in the first couple weeks in April, that number’s moved back to 18%, indicating faster spending in consumers,” he added. Consumer prices increased 8.5% year-over-year in March, revealing price jumps for everyday items not seen since the 1970s and early ’80s.
A few decades ago, full-service restaurant managers and owners often greeted customers at the door, shaking their hands and checking reservations in a book at the front desk. But today, many restaurants are quickly phasing out these analog operations due to ongoing labor pressure. So what's filling the gap left behind by these human interactions? For a growing number of restaurants, it's robots, QR codes and self-order kiosks. But interest in labor light or labor-free solutions appears to eclipse actual implementation among operators.
May require account to read. Small merchants and sole proprietors are the ideal laboratory for Google and its strategic partner Global Payments as they experiment with creating new digital shopping experiences, according to executives from the two companies. “We’re starting with small businesses because we all saw the huge advantages that came from digitizing operations during the pandemic,” Janet Kennedy, vice president of Google Cloud for North America regions, said during a panel discussion at last week’s Electronic Transactions Association conference.
In line with its April 13 announcement that it’s making a “big push” into software, Brex has acquired Y Combinator-backed Pry Financials for $90 million, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. Founded in 2019, San Francisco-based financial planning software startup Pry raised $4.2 million in venture funding last year in a seed round of funding. Investors include Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital and Pioneer Fund, among others. The company’s software targets seed to Series B companies.
Google seems to be working on bringing Wallet back in some form after it made the app part of Google Pay. According to Mishaal Rahman, the company is creating a Wallet interface for Google Play Services that will act as a way to access and manage your payment and transit cards, passes, rewards memberships, and more. Currently, you manage most of these in Google Pay, and it seems likely that you’ll be able to get to the new Wallet UI from within that app, which Rahman says will still be used for contactless payments.
Movie theater chain AMC has welcomed some more cryptocurrencies as payment options for online and mobile purchases. In a tweet on April 15, AMC CEO Adam Aron announced that moviegoers can now pay for movie tickets and concessions using Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. Users can only access these cryptocurrencies through the AMC mobile app or website.
Coinbase has its NFT marketplace up and running in beta mode, the company shared in a blog post Wednesday. Last fall, the cryptocurrency exchange platform announced its entry into the NFT market and its intention to create a peer-to-peer interface for artists and buyers. When it launches in full, users will be able to buy or sell nonfungible tokens with cryptocurrency and other forms of payment.
America’s oldest professional baseball stadium is offering customers a leading-edge method of buying concessions. Fenway Park, home stadium of the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team, is unveiling the Instacart Caper Counter artificial intelligence (AI)-based POS system. The stadium is rolling out the new Caper Counter checkout systems in partnership with Aramark Sports + Entertainment, its food and beverage partner. Customers can use three Caper Counters for contact-free checkout experiences at select areas around the stadium. Instacart purchased Caper AI in October 2021.
Mother’s Day spending is expected to total a record $28.1 billion this year, up $1.4 billion from 2020, according to the annual survey released today by the National Retail Federation. Approximately 83 percent of U.S. adults are expected to celebrate the annual holiday. “There is a lot of consumer optimism around Mother’s Day this year as more people are getting vaccinated and stimulus checks are being distributed,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. “For many, this is a chance to make up for last year’s Mother’s Day when we were under lockdown.
As consumers adjust to rising prices while slowly returning to pre-pandemic habits (like procrastinating on their shopping), some stores saw notable changes in foot traffic last quarter. Food chain: According to Placer.ai, grocery stores saw foot traffic fall in Q1 of 2022, down 8.6% from the previous quarter, though visits were up 4.6% YoY. The second half of Q1 saw a more significant slowdown, with YoY visits the week of March 28 down 6.6%, which Placer.ai attributes to higher costs—particularly record-high gas prices—taking hold.
In an age of anywhere and everywhere commerce, POS solutions have evolved from fixed points of sale to moveable touchpoints in stores, apps and online channels. The machines supporting these solutions can be remotely managed, networked and updated, whereas standalone models require hands-on maintenance, repair and replacement. Part 1 of this series explored hardware's role in bringing physical security to digital commerce. Part 2 shares insights from payments leaders about the fundamental mechanics behind secure, compliant transactions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced they are filing a lawsuit against MoneyGram International, Inc. and MoneyGram Payment Systems, Inc. (MoneyGram)—one of the largest remittance providers in the U.S.—for systemically and repeatedly violating various consumer financial protection laws and leaving families high and dry. The lawsuit specifically alleges that the company stranded customers waiting for their money when it failed to deliver funds promptly to recipients abroad.
It all started with a series of customer phone calls. That morning sometime between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., Brightwell received word from the customer service team that customers called to complain about missing funds, says Ernie Moran, at the time Brightwell's senior vice president of risk. Under normal circumstances, if users noticed a discrepancy upon logging into their app, the company typically would look into the problem to determine whether the customer mistakenly overspent or a fraud had occurred. Unfortunately for Brightwell, it was the latter.
Marqeta, the global modern card issuing platform, announced its new RiskControl solution, a comprehensive product suite to help its customers better optimize their card programs and take control of end-to-end risk management. RiskControl is designed to provide Marqeta’s customers with comprehensive risk, compliance, and fraud management capabilities across the cardholder lifecycle, allowing them to focus on their business growth.
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global growth projections for 2022 and 2023, saying the economic hit from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine will “propagate far and wide.” That said, some countries will be hit more than others — and some won’t be hit at all. What follows are the new 2022 IMF forecasts for real GDP for selected countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
The U.S. grew steadily through early April, a Federal Reserve survey found, but high inflation showed little sign of relenting in “the coming months” and clouded the outlook for the economy. The regular Fed survey, known as the Beige Book, found little evidence inflation is set to turn sharply lower. Businesses have been forced to pay higher wages due to a tight labor market, supply-chain bottlenecks persist and prices continued to rise. The war in Ukraine added to inflationary pressures by raising the cost of oil, metals and grains such as wheat, the Fed noted.
Applications for unemployment benefits inched down last week as the total number of Americans collecting aid fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years. Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 184,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which levels out week-to-week volatility, rose by 4,500 to 177,250. About 1.42 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment benefits in the week of April 9, the fewest since February 21, 1970.
Synovus Bank announced that it has signed an agreement to strategically invest in Qualpay resulting in a 60% ownership interest. Qualpay is a provider of a cloud-based platform that combines a payment gateway with robust merchant processing solutions, which allows merchants and independent software vendors (ISVs) to easily integrate payments into their software or websites. The completion of the investment is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of customary closing conditions, including receipt of necessary regulatory approvals.
Versapay, the leader in Collaborative Accounts Receivable, announced it has completed its acquisition of U.S.-based fintech company DadeSystems. The acquisition broadens Versapay's suite of accounts receivable (AR) automation solutions and expands its AI and machine learning capabilities. It also expands the company's enterprise and mid-market footprint while adding key talent to the growing Versapay team. "We are very excited to welcome DadeSystems' employees, customers, and partners to Versapay," said Craig O'Neill, CEO, Versapay.
MYPINPAD, a global leader in mobile-based payments acceptance and digital authentication solutions, and SmartPesa, a leading provider of payments and agency banking solutions, have agreed to merge. The combined entity will operate under the MYPINPAD brand. Customers will benefit from greater scale, a wider product offering and the certainty of continued support as the industry moves towards the PCI Security Standards Council's forthcoming Mobile Payments on COTS (MPoC) Standard.
Financial technology leader FIS® announced that the FIS Modern Banking Platform is now available on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, expanding digital online banking to financial institutions in markets including the United Kingdom, Thailand and New Zealand. The offering combines the latest advancements in cloud security, monitoring, resiliency and operational analytics with a modern, cloud-native core. The FIS Modern Banking Platform helps banks design, build and deploy new products and services.
Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, today announced that James Phillips will be joining as President of Financial Services. James joins Stripe after a decade at Microsoft where he helped scale the Digital Transformation Platform Group. At Microsoft, James led what started as a 200-person business intelligence product team that grew to become the Digital Transformation Platform Group, with over 15,000 employees developing products across six continents generating over $15 billion in annual revenue.
Fortis, a commerce and payments technology leader and member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), announced that it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration Expertise with Oracle Hospitality OPERA and Oracle Retail Xstore for its hospitality and retail channels. The integrated solution allows for a virtually seamless and secure payment experience while streamlining administrative processes and reducing costs.
Integrated payments and security leader, Bluefin, announced today the rollout of its PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution across 458 U.S. car wash locations with partners DRB and Datacap Systems. With the largest install base of any car wash technology provider, DRB specializes in advanced point-of-sale systems (POS) and next generation business management. The company’s brands include DRB Tunnel Solutions, DRB In-Bay Solutions (formerly Unitec®), Suds™, Washify®and Driverse.
Equifax, the global data, analytics and technology company, and Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, are partnering to deliver the data-driven insights organizations need to succeed in a digital economy. The companies are collaborating on new offerings that deliver a more holistic picture of businesses and their data and enable financial institutions and businesses of all sizes to embrace the power of real-time data insights.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced a technology integration with D2R-Collect, a provider of cloud-based technology and recovery software solutions for accounts receivable, third party collections, credit unions, higher education institutions, and small- to medium-sized enterprises. The partnership will further improve and maximize collection efforts by offering enhanced digital payment acceptance capabilities for businesses utilizing the D2R-Collect platform.
One Inc, the leading digital payments network for the insurance industry, has partnered with Visa and announced the introduction of network tokenization for leading insurers across the industry via One Inc’s leading PremiumPay® inbound payments product. As part of the collaboration with Visa, One Inc is leveraging Token ID – a Visa Solution, which empowers banks, merchants, regional payments schemes, clearing houses and other payments stakeholders like One Inc to build, manage and control their own tokenization capabilities.
Finastra announced that it has teamed up with EcoTree, a specialized forestry company focused on carbon removal and biodiversity preservation through tree planting and sustainable forestry management. The initiative provides Finastra customers the opportunity to remove the carbon footprint associated with both the running and implementation of technological solutions, an important step as banks and financial institutions move towards net-zero carbon emissions.
UniCredit, one of the major pan-European banks, has renewed the partnership with Worldline, a global leader in payment services, for the Open Banking Third Party Provider (TPP) service. The partnership with Worldline allows UniCredit customers to connect their accounts in other banks throughout Europe via one single application programming interface (API). This enables UniCredit to effectively offer Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS) and opens up a range of business opportunities for both UniCredit and its customers.
