Visa has agreed to acquire Swedish startup Tink, which allows banks and startups to access consumer financial data and handles payments outside of traditional card networks like Visa’s, in a $2.1 billion deal (€1.8 billion). The deal marks Visa’s second attempt to expand beyond its core business of handling card payments after its takeover of San Francisco-based open banking startup Plaid stalled. The Stockholm-based business was founded in 2012 and was originally focused on building a personal finance management app but now uses its technology to help around 300 banks and fintechs in Europe build products from aggregating customers’ financial data.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced it has acquired Kontrol Payables (“Kontrol”) for up to $11 million, of which $8 million was paid at closing. The acquisition will be financed with cash on hand. Kontrol, which was founded in 2011, is an integrated accounts payable (“AP”) automation solutions provider serving clients in a variety of end markets, including construction, food production, software, manufacturing, and education.
PayPal said last Friday it is raising fees for some of its newer products “to better align our pricing with the value that our products and services provide,” according to a blog post by senior vice president Dan Leberman. The changes will affect how much PayPal merchants pay per transaction, and take effect August 2nd. “PayPal has become more than just a button or payment processor to be a full commerce platform capable of driving growth for businesses,” according to the blog post. “Consumers are nearly three times more likely to complete their purchase when PayPal is available at checkout.”
Total online retail sales in the United States during Amazon’s 48-hour Prime Day surpassed $11 billion — 6.1% higher than overall e-commerce transactions generated by the 2020 event, according to Adobe Analytics data. The total was slightly more than last year’s Cyber Monday, which was the busiest digital sales day on record, Adobe said. However, the Prime Day event was for 48 hours rather than the 24-hour Cyber Monday splurge after Thanksgiving.
As interest grows in cryptocurrency, financial-services providers are taking note. The latest is Fiserv Inc., which announced on Thursday that financial institutions it works with will be able to allow their customers to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin via their bank accounts. The capability is enabled via an integration between Fiserv and NYDIG, a Bitcoin technology and financial-services company. Fiserv says the service means banks and credit unions will be able “to meet growing mainstream interest in Bitcoin, retain and grow their customer base, and increase non-interest income opportunities.”
As interest grows in cryptocurrency, financial-services providers are taking note. The latest is Fiserv Inc., which announced on Thursday that financial institutions it works with will be able to allow their customers to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin via their bank accounts. The capability is enabled via an integration between Fiserv and NYDIG, a Bitcoin technology and financial-services company. Fiserv says the service means banks and credit unions will be able “to meet growing mainstream interest in Bitcoin, retain and grow their customer base, and increase non-interest income opportunities.”
May require account to read. Revolut Ltd. is in the early stages of a fundraising round that could value the British company at $20 billion or more, people familiar with the matter said, as investor cash pours into fintechs. The company has held preliminary talks with investors about raising funds, though no final decisions about timing or amount have been made, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. A representative for Revolut declined to comment.
Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm famed for making successful bets on early-stage tech companies that eventually grew to rule the world, is staking its next claim in the land of cryptocurrency. Yesterday, it revealed a $2.2 billion fund for investments in crypto networks. “We believe that the next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto,” reads a blog post from a trio of partners at Andreessen Horowitz—one of them being Chris Dixon, a leading voice in the angel investing sphere.
Complaints against some digital payment services and apps like Venmo, Cash App or Zelle are skyrocketing, according to a troubling new report. Nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group [PIRG] says top issues include scams, trouble using accounts and poor customer service. The group analyzed more than 9,200 complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2017 to April of 2021. The report found more than 2,700 complaints were made from January to April of this year — compared to just over 600 in the same period last year.
Following Wise’s announcement earlier this month that it planned to go public by way of a direct listing on the LSE, the company made the news formal with a regulatory filing. The London-based company — formerly known as TransferWise and primarily in the business of transferring money across different currencies — with 10 million users said it plans to list in “early July 2021” but did not provide further details on pricing of its class A shares, in keeping with how direct listings work. It’s been reported, however, that the plan is for the valuation to be in the range of $6 billion to $7 billion with the listing.
In 2015, police departments worldwide started finding ATMs compromised with advanced new “shimming” devices made to steal data from chip card transactions. Authorities in the United States and abroad had seized many of these shimmers, but for years couldn’t decrypt the data on the devices. This is a story of ingenuity and happenstance, and how one former Secret Service agent helped crack a code that revealed the contours of a global organized crime ring.
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has revealed the newest application of its digital identity intelligence capabilities. LexisNexis® Financial Crime Digital Intelligence is a new solution that leverages digital identity data to transform financial crime compliance workflows. Assessing sanctions risk associated with transactions is a foundational requirement of all organizations. Transactions have been rapidly migrating to digital channels in recent years and COVID-19 has accelerated this timeline. The faceless nature of digital transactions introduces new opportunity for criminals to evade detection.
The pace of growth in the U.S. economy in the first quarter remained unrevised at a 6.4% annualized rate after the latest revision, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had forecast no revision. Using more complete source data, the government found that upward revisions to business investment was offset by a larger international trade deficit. The economy is expanding at a rapid rate as more Americans feel comfortable returning to work and leisure activities as the vaccination rollout combats the coronavirus pandemic.
Initial claims for unemployment insurance remained elevated last week as employers struggled to fill a record number of job openings. First-time filings totaled 411,000 for the week ended June 19, a slight decrease from the previous total of 418,000 but worse than the 380,000 Dow Jones estimate, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Nuvei Corporation announced that its wholly owned subsidiary has signed an acquiring agreement with Discover® Global Network, the payment brand of Discover. Nuvei has secured the partnership at a critical time as the shift to eCommerce continues to surge, satisfying the demand for greater connections between online merchants and Discover Global Network. The enhanced card acceptance offering allows businesses to provide an improved online shopping experience that can help increase sales and attract more clients from across the globe.
Shift4 Payments, the leader in integrated payment processing solutions, announced that it has surpassed $1 billion in weekly end-to-end payment processing volume for the first time in the company’s history. Shift4 CEO Jared Isaacman states, “This is an exciting milestone for Shift4, especially as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our IPO. Our first billion-dollar year was 2004, which we thought was a pretty big deal at the time.
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, together with Fiserv, a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, announced a joint venture to create a comprehensive provider of payment acceptance and banking solutions. The joint venture will serve small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the German market and will be based in Frankfurt am Main, pending regulatory approval. “By combining Fiserv payment solutions with our banking products, we will be able to deliver accounts, payment solutions and banking services to our SMEs,” says Stefan Hoops.
According to new data from ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, the use of mobile wallets has increased nearly 50 percent (49%) from 2020 to 2021 among those using digital payments more frequently to pay bills than they did before the pandemic (21.4%). This is a sharp rise compared to increases in other digital payment methods, including a biller’s website (11%) and a biller’s mobile app (6%).
Financial technology leader FIS® announced that Rye, NY-based USALLIANCE Financial has selected the FIS Payments One platform to streamline and modernize its portfolio of credit and debit card digital payment offerings for its members. Founded in 1966, USALLIANCE today manages more than $2 billion in assets for its more than 125,000 members.
Leading specialized payments platform, Paysafe, announces the extension of its relationship with the fintech and financial intermediary company SweePay. The new collaboration will allow Swiss residents to settle bills using Paysafecash, a leading online cash solution. The extended agreement follows SweePay’s launch of Paysafe’s popular prepaid solution – paysafecard – as a payment option in 2015.
Metrics Global Inc. announces that Michael Cottrell is joining the fast-growing global fintech company as President effective June 7, 2021. He is responsible for the company's technology development, day-to-day operations, and the delivery of our market-leading business solutions. Mike has more than 25 years of experience in the payments industry with a special talent and passion for fintech processing systems and platforms.
Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, today announced its end-to-end card issuing solution will be implemented by Visma, a leading European software company ranked in the global top 10 cloud service providers. With Adyen Issuing, Visma brands can create custom card programs, giving customers complete control of their expenses via a single payments platform.
Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, announces the launch of WL Hospitality Suite. A full service offering for the hotel industry, supporting and enabling hotels to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience for their guests. The hospitality and travel industry has been severely impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the daily revenue per hotel room – a key indicator for the sector – not expected to return to 2019 levels until at least 2023 in the US and 2024 in many European cities, including London.
Deserve, a provider of bespoke white label mobile-centric API and SDK-based credit card technology, has raised $50 million in a Series D funding round joint-led by Mastercard. Mission Holdings and Ally Ventures joint led the round, with participation from existing backers including Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Sallie Mae. Deserve says the funding will help it in its mission to modernise the credit card stack, and enable the industry to launch and scale programmes quickly via modern APIs.
As EVO’s latest value-added processing service, EVO ACH is integrated to EVO’s proprietary payment gateway, PayFabric, allowing EVO’s merchants to seamlessly offer their customers with an additional payments method. EVO ACH can be integrated into a merchant’s website as well as third party applications for a fully streamlined payment experience with transaction support that includes mail orders, telephone orders, eCommerce websites as well as recurring subscriptions.
BlueSnap announced its continued efforts to empower and improve the digitalization of payments in education, offering education software providers the increased efficiency, risk mitigation and improved overall user experience that today's schools, students and parents expect from edtech today. Based on years of expertise in the nuances of the market, the company's Modern Education Payments Solutions allow edtech providers to offer their customers a better experience by making it fast and easy for parents to manage school related payments the way they want
