“The vast majority of Venmo transactions are being logged in a public API accessible to anyone, according to the recent investigation of a privacy advocate. The reason this happens is because the Venmo app’s default settings are set to “Public” for all users.  Unless users specifically change this value, all the transactions they make via the Venmo money-sending app are logged and made available to anyone via the Venmo public API. Data exposed via this API includes the first and last name of the sender and recipient, Venmo avatars, the date of the transaction, a comment regarding the transaction, transaction types, and more.”

“Bank of America has announced that Erica, its artificial intelligence-driven virtual financial assistant, now has more than 2 million users. According to a press release, this is more than double the number of customers using the technology less than a month ago. And that’s not BofA’s only recent mobile milestone: The number active users of the Zelle person-to-person payment feature in the bank’s mobile app is now approaching 4 million.”

“PayPal is leading a $50 million investment into PPRO, a London-based business that is focused on cross-border payments for merchants, specifically by offering the merchants a seamless way of accepting payments from customers using whatever the most popular payment form happens to be in a particular country. To date, the PPRO platform covers some 140 payment methods, and the plan will be to add more countries, and more payments, into the mix.”

“[T]he rise of digital financial services has changed the nature of payments and payment platforms in many ways. Customers can transfer money across great distances with a few taps on their mobile phones, with low or no associated fees. Providers can reach customers they weren’t able to before—namely, people with very limited assets who are either unbanked or underserved by predigital financial services. In emerging economies, telecoms and other non-bank institutions are stepping in to take advantage of this opportunity by offering digital payment services, such as mobile money.”

“A key factor in this latest partnership appears to be data suggesting Venmo was already a popular mechanism for sharing payments between multiple Uber riders. Someone would pay for an Uber ride through their account, as usual, and then request reimbursement from their friends through Venmo. According to the company, more than 6 million Venmo payments last year mentioned the word “Uber,” which offers some indication as to how popular this new payment integration should prove.”