💡 VARs, ISVs Look Toward the Future at Inspire 2022- we are a proud sponsor of RSPA and recently attended Inspire to learn about what the future holds for software and payments. Read about some of the key topics and trends.
The priciest Super Bowl commercials will cost a record $7 million this year, according to NBC. To put that into terms many of the big game's advertisers will understand, that's about 160 bitcoin or 2,200 ether. Cryptocurrencies will be taking center stage during the ad breaks of Super Bowl LVI, even as bitcoin prices have tumbled more than 35% from their all-time highs just a few months ago. FTX, a crypto exchange that recently raised funding valuing it at $32 billion, has had the now retired seven-time Super Bowl champ Tom Brady appear in its previous spots and will run an ad during Sunday's game.
Financial technology leader FIS® announced the promotion of Stephanie Ferris to company President effective Feb. 8. Ferris most recently served as FIS Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), having joined the company through its 2019 acquisition of Worldpay where she served as Chief Financial Officer. After joining FIS, she assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer where she led the integration of Worldpay into FIS, surpassing both revenue and cost synergy commitments.
“We are pleased with our fourth quarter results as we delivered another quarter of strong organic revenue and adjusted EPS growth,” said Frank Bisignano, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv. “For 2021, Fiserv had another successful year of delivering on our growth agenda - attaining the high end of our original organic revenue growth outlook and coming in well above our original adjusted EPS outlook, all while investing in the business to fuel further growth as we innovate to provide value for our clients.”
Dutch payments processor Adyen reported a 51% jump in core earnings in the first half of 2021, topping expectations and sending its stock price sharply higher. The company said Wednesday that net revenue in the period came in at 556.5 million euros ($635.9 million), up 47% year-on-year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 51%, to 357.3 million euros. That was higher than the 552 million euros of net revenue and 346 million euros of EBITDA expected by analysts, according to Reuters.
“We are pleased with the resilience that our businesses demonstrated during the fourth quarter of 2021 and for the full year,” said Jeff Sloan, Chief Executive Officer. “We are particularly proud of the sequential improvement in our Merchant Solutions business this quarter, despite the incremental impact of COVID-19 throughout the period. We reported the best results in our history in 2021, and we expect 2022 to exceed that performance as we continue to meaningfully advance our differentiated strategies for growth.
Apple Inc. rattled the payments industry on Tuesday with its announcement of technology that will let merchants accept card and Apple Pay transactions directly on an off-the-shelf iPhone with no attachments, but rivals say they’re taking the news in stride. “We’ll feel some impact, we’ll feel it a little bit, but we’re not overly concerned,” says Bradford Giles, senior vice president of marketing at terminal giant Ingenico Group. Adds Sam Shawki, chief executive of MagicCube Inc., developer of rival technology for Android phones: “It’s net good for us. It’s a confirmation of what we’ve been doing.”
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), a payments trade association whose members include big tech companies and other payments providers, urged regulators to work “collaboratively and with careful consideration” today in an annual document outlining its policy perspectives. According to a 33-page document released Monday by the ETA, regulators must avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to setting rules for financial products. Otherwise, the public will lose out on products and services that could prove to be beneficial to them, the ETA said.
Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Klarna is considering a new funding round that would make it the most valuable startup in Europe, with a valuation of $50 billion to $60 billion. That’s according to a report from Bloomberg News Thursday (Feb. 10), citing people familiar with the matter. These sources say Klarna is likely to tap sovereign wealth and pension funds as new investors. The $50 billion figure is based on preliminary estimates. Klarna is considering letting its current investors sell some of their holdings as part of the fundraising while also exploring securing debt financing from banks to fuel its expansion plans, the people said.
The e-commerce boom that started with the COVID-19 pandemic shows little sign of slowing down, and today a company called Shopware, which provides a set of open source tools to power online shopping experiences for some 100,000 mid-sized and larger brands, is announcing $100 million in funding to capture the opportunity. The money is notable not just for its nine-figure size, but also because of its context. This is the first outside funding that Shopware has ever raised — it has been bootstrapped and profitable since being founded back in 2000, when e-commerce was really only getting its start.
Digital banking services provider Railsbank is planning to raise $100m in new funding, which if successful would propel it to unicorn status. Railsbank, which offers several B2B banking services to fintechs and non-financial brands, is currently working with bankers on plans to raise the funds, according to a Sky News report. The London-based company, founded in 2016, currently operates in the UK, Europe, APAC and the US.
GoCardless, a leading fintech in direct bank payment solutions, today announced that it has secured a Series G funding round of USD312 million, making it the latest European and UK tech unicorn at a valuation of USD2.1 billion. The investment is led by Permira, which brings significant experience in backing best-in-class payments and financial software businesses including Klarna, Clearwater Analytics and Carta. New investor BlackRock Private Equity Partners also joined the round.
Online subscription retailers brought in plenty of new customers last year. Subscription retailers grew their overall customer base by an average of 31% year-over-year, according to an analysis of more 12,000 subscription retailers and more than 25 million subscription customers from subscription payment solution provider Recharge. Across all categories analyzed by Recharge — beauty & personal care, fashion & apparel, food & beverage, health & wellness, home goods, pets & animals, and other — subscription retailers grew their overall customer base by an average of 31% year-over-year.
Major retailers Nike and Amazon have both been floated as potential buyers by news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal. Reportedly, Amazon has been speaking with advisors about a potential deal. However, there is no guarantee Amazon will make an offer to acquire Peloton––or that Peloton would accept such an offer. The rumors come after an activist investor recently penned an open letter to Peloton’s board of directors urging the company to sell and replace its CEO.
Every brand and its mother are scrambling to figure out a plan to enter the much-hyped metaverse. (Meanwhile, our mothers are still texting us once a week to ask what an NFT is.) “Games [are] an extension of social media. These are environments where people aren’t just playing; they’re purchasing and socializing,” explained Charles Hambro, co-founder and CEO of Geeiq, a gaming/metaverse consultancy and data platform. With roughly 2.7 billion people playing games globally, there’s opportunity in digital retail—but brands are going to need a map.
It’s the biggest financial seizure in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice: $3.6 billion in Bitcoin that the government says was stolen in a massive hack in 2016. The announcement on Tuesday by federal law enforcement and prosecutors revealed a six-year chess match to find the culprits behind the theft of 119,754 Bitcoin from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. The proceeds—worth $72 million then, but $4.5 billion now—were siphoned from users’ accounts into a single crypto wallet.
Banks will be put under the microscope as part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s initiative to get rid of so-called junk fees, Director Rohit Chopra warned Thursday. The levying of gratuitous fees has expanded to all parts of the economy — from hotel fees to surcharges on concert tickets to nonsufficient funds fees imposed by banks, Chopra said. The proliferation of line-item charges on bills is obscuring the true price of products and services, making it harder for consumers to shop around based on price, he said.
Russian authorities have arrested six men accused of operating some of the most active online bazaars for selling stolen payment card data. The crackdown — the second closure of major card fraud shops by Russian authorities in as many weeks — comes closely behind Russia’s arrest of 14 alleged affiliates of the REvil ransomware gang, and has many in the cybercrime underground asking who might be next. On Feb. 7 and 8, the domains for the carding shops Trump’s Dumps, Ferum Shop, Sky-Fraud and UAS were seized by Department K, a division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation that focuses on computer crimes.
Here’ a timely reminder for business leaders about the long term impact of a data breach and the importance of immediately disclosing a cyberattack. The Federal Trade Commission announced this week that a multi million-dollar settlement with credit score reporting company Equifax over a 2017 data beach became final in January. As recounted on the FTC website “In September of 2017, Equifax announced a data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people.
Consumer prices surged more than expected over the past 12 months, indicating a worsening outlook for inflation and cementing the likelihood of substantial interest rate hikes this year. The consumer price index for January, which measures the costs of dozens of everyday consumer goods, rose 7.5% compared with a year ago, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That compared with Dow Jones estimates of 7.2% for the closely watched inflation gauge. It was the highest reading since February 1982.
Visa announced that the U.S. Spending Momentum Index (SMI) was 102.4 in January (seasonally adjusted), down from a revised 109.4 in December. The Visa SMI is an economic indicator of the health of consumer spending. When the Visa SMI rises above 100, the consumer spending momentum is strengthening and when it falls below 100, the spending momentum is weakening as fewer consumers are spending more relative to the previous year.
2022 kicked off with gains across nearly all retail sectors, according to Mastercard SpendingPulseTM, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment. This January, U.S. retail sales excluding auto increased 7.2% year-over-year (YOY), with online sales growing 10.4% compared to January 2021. Despite the shadow of Omicron and elevated inflation, consumer spending was buoyed by pent-up savings, wage growth and the continued re-opening of the “experience economy.”
Bank of America today announced their approximately 67 million consumer clients made $335 billion in total payments during January, a 17% increase over January 2021 and the second highest month of spending on record. This follows a 5% increase in total payments in January 2021 when compared to pre-pandemic levels in January 2020. January marked a continuation of significant consumer spending in 2021. Bank of America consumer clients made a record $3.8 trillion in total payments during all of last year, an increase of 24% over pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
PAI, a leader in ATM portfolio management tools and services, announced that it has acquired Texas-based TouchPoint 21, a leader in ATM and cash management outsourcing for financial institutions. The acquisition brings a mature, proven managed service model to PAI, enabled by TouchPoint 21’s expertise in advanced ATM and Interactive Teller Machine (ITM) terminals, along with its in-house servicing and armored teams.
“Our fourth quarter results marked a solid finish to a terrific year for NCR. We simultaneously drove strong growth in recurring revenue, higher profitability and increased cash generation,” said Michael Hayford, Chief Executive Officer. “We made tremendous progress integrating Cardtronics and transforming NCR into a software platform and payments company. We enter 2022 with strong demand, positive momentum and a path to accelerate growth. We are positioning NCR to deliver competitive differentiation to our customers and strengthen our long-term growth profile.”
Visa Inc. announced the appointment of Jennifer Como as Head of Investor Relations. Ms. Como succeeds Mike Milotich who will depart Visa later this month to become chief financial officer of a publicly traded company. Ms. Como currently serves as the senior vice president of investor relations at Visa. She joined the company in 2019 after a nearly 20-year career across financial services in the payments, banking, insurance and brokerage sectors, holding roles in corporate finance, communications, strategy and investor relations.
Marqeta, the global modern card issuing platform, announced the appointment of Mike Milotich as the company’s new Chief Financial Officer, effective February 22, 2022. Milotich joins Marqeta following a decade-long tenure at Visa in various financial leadership positions, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. He has more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance, the majority of which falls in payments and financial services. He has also held leadership positions at American Express and PayPal.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, announced the expansion of its relationship with UnionPay International, a wholly owned subsidiary of China UnionPay, one of the world’s largest payment networks. The collaboration will allow UnionPay to grow on a global scale by facilitating the issuance of virtual and physical UnionPay cards across international markets.
Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry and #4 player worldwide, announced the integration of Alipay+ into its global portfolio. Through the collaboration, Worldline enhance its payment offering for in-store and E-Commerce merchants across Europe, helping them to better serve customers through expanded mobile payments and other digital payment methods. Worldline is the first acquirer to enter into a full-scale multi-country integration with Alipay+.
Sporting Kansas City and Shift4 announced a five-year partnership through the 2026 Major League Soccer season. Shift4 will integrate the company’s unified commerce ecosystem into SeatGeek to optimize ticketing transactions for Sporting Kansas City, a charter member of Major League Soccer. “We are proud to partner with Shift4 to deliver an enhanced payment experience for fans by leveraging their expertise and utilizing their end-to-end solution for seamless, secure payments,” said Sporting Kansas City Chief Revenue Officer Gregg Allen.
eProcessingNetwork, LLC (ePN), is pleased to announce its certification by Worldpay, a division of FIS, to accept and process NFC, EMV, PIN Debit, Restaurant, and eCommerce transactions through Worldpay’s processing platform. As leaders in the Electronic Payment Processing Industry, ePN and Worldpay have partnered to offer the small- to mid-sized merchant true end-to-end, secure, and PCI-compliant payment processing.
Payroc WorldAccess, LLC, (“Payroc”), a global payments leader, is excited to announce the launch of its new choice offering in a Card-Not-Present environment. This custom offering will be provided through Payroc’s subsidiaries and will provide businesses of all kinds the choice to accept all Card and ACH payment types at no cost to their merchants. “We’re very excited to offer ConsumerChoice in an eCommerce environment, which is one of the fastest growing segments in the payments industry today.” said Sam Ackley, Founder of ACHeck21® and current Managing Director of ACHeck21®.
Kiwibank has taken the next step in delivering real-time experiences for its customers, after entering into a strategic partnership with ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time digital payment software. The landmark agreement will see ACI provide and run Kiwibank’s newly installed, full capability Payment Hub: a SaaS solution hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud. The flexibility of ACI’s cloud-native payment solution ensures that any service Kiwibank requires is available on a secure cloud-based platform.
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, announced its partnership with Wirex, a leading borderless cryptocurrency and fiat payment platform to deliver its prepaid multi-currency debit card to the US. The collaboration builds on a longstanding partnership between the two payment leaders, expanding the Wirex prepaid crypto-enabled card program from the APAC and European regions to the United States.
Cardknox, a leading developer-friendly omnichannel payment gateway, announced its expanded support for unattended retail by integrating with the VP6300 and the VP6800, two self-service payment terminals developed by ID TECH, a global leader in payment peripherals. With the growing demand for cashless and contactless payment options, self-service payment terminals offer merchants increased opportunities to capture sales while providing consumers with a frictionless payment experience.
Aliaswire, a provider of digital payment and credit solutions, announced the addition of a new bank account validation (BAV) solution for banks and their commercial clients. The news comes in advance of the pending enforcement of a new web debit rule which requires ACH originators to make account validation an explicit part of their fraud detection efforts. The regulation was first announced by Nacha in March 2021 with a one-year grace period for compliance.
Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. announced a next-generation, cloud-native technology strategy that will help community and regional financial institutions innovate faster, differentiate strategically, and compete successfully while serving the evolving needs of their accountholders. The multi-year strategy centers on the company's ongoing development of a single, modern, open-banking platform that enables easy access to a broad ecosystem of Jack Henry solutions and high-grade, third-party fintechs.
