“Green Dot Corp.’s diversification from a pure prepaid card management company into banking and other financial-services niches is driving direct deposits into its card accounts and spurring revenue-generating payment volume, according to the company’s latest financial report. Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot said Wednesday that fourth-quarter purchase volume on its cards rose 10% to $6.2 billion from the year-earlier quarter’s $5.65 billion. That increase came despite the active card base growing only 0.6% to 5.29 million.”

“Residents of even the tiniest far-flung villages in China may soon be able to pay on their phones to run daily errands as Beijing announced this month that it aims to make mobile payments ubiquitous in rural areas by the end of 2020. The plan arrived in a set of guidelines (document link in Chinese) jointly published by five of China’s top regulating bodies, including the central bank, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Securities Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in a move to make online financial services more accessible to rural residents.”

“The golden state’s attorney general Xavier Becerra announced a new bill Thursday that aims to close loopholes in its existing data breach notification laws by expanding the requirements for companies to notify users or customers if their passport and government ID numbers, along with biometric data, such as fingerprints, and iris and facial recognition scans, have been stolen.”

“An earlier version of this story cited an alert sent by the U.S. Secret Service and interviews with a company that helps merchants secure their payment terminals. The claims were that a circular device found on the side of a gas pump was a skimmer that was believed to be responsible for communicating with other Bluetooth-based skimmers found embedded in the pumps, and that its purpose was to gather stolen card data and send it off wirelessly to the skimmer thieves via text message.”

“The present document brings together widely considered good practice in security for internet-connected consumer devices in a set of high-level outcome-focused provisions. The objective of the present document is to support all parties involved in the development and manufacturing of consumer IoT with guidance on securing their products. “

“A San-Francisco based, Ripple has recently shared a ‘descriptive insights’ on why Europe needs ‘Just-in-time Payments’ if innovation is the key vision. It discusses, what’s holding back Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to compete on a global scale and how can these entities mark their presence in Europe to double up the economy and tackle international trade effectively.”

“The rise of Amazon Go has put the spotlight on cashierless checkout technology over the past year, but retailers could face real dilemmas as they seek to implement and scale up these solutions. Consumers are intrigued by the technology and appreciate anything that removes friction from the in-store checkout process, but cashierless checkout has so far been largely limited to the convenience and grocery verticals. Additionally, the solutions’ current cost structure, as well as the overall disruption they bring to store operations, remain big challenges.”

“With the SBB Preview App, customers can check in with the “EasyRide” function when they start their journey and check them out at any location. “EasyRide function” recognizes the distance traveled and automatically books the appropriate ticket, and always at the fairest price. If, for example, the value of the route traveled exceeds the price of a day ticket in one day, the customer will subsequently be charged the cheaper price of the day ticket.”

“Our new component will officially launch early next year, but we are already previewing it during the event because the upcoming protocol will bring serious changes to the way manufacturers certify their terminals and vendors accept payments. It was thus important for us to put our partners at ease by demonstrating how we already tackled the new challenges inherent to the EMVCo 3.0 certification.”

“He also reiterated that the App Store, which now hosts over 2 million apps, continues to pay substantial figures to developers. Apple has previously said, back in January, that the total developer earnings over the 10 years of the App Store were $120 billion. But one of the most intriguing announcements today was that payments to European developers specifically are now more than $25 billion.”

“And as Venmo, PayPal’s popular mobile payments service, continues to partner with more merchants, he said there are no signs that disappointing holiday sales and a potential global slowdown will negatively affect the sector. The number of payments processed on the platform surged 80 percent year over year in the last quarter and Schulman thinks the company could process more than $100 billion worth of transactions in 2019.”

“Both Apple and Goldman have something to gain from the partnership. As iPhones sales flag, Apple is looking to boost its recurring services revenue to $50 billion by 2020, and teaming up with Goldman gives the tech giant a way to branch into financial services without the regulatory scrutiny of becoming a bank. Its Apple Pay service, slow to catch on the US, will soon face even more competition from contactless cards.”

“Swedish households are increasingly using electronic means of payment such as bank cards and Swish, at the same time as the use of cash is declining. Debit cards are still dominant among electronic means of payment. This is shown by a survey that the Riksbank carried out to get a better understanding of the Swedish population’s payment habits.”

“Fraud investigators say they’ve uncovered a sophisticated new breed of credit card skimmers being installed at gas pumps that is capable of relaying stolen card data via mobile text message, thereby enabling fraudsters to collect it from anywhere in the world. One interesting component of this criminal innovation is a small cellphone and Bluetooth-enabled device hidden inside the contactless payment terminal of the pump, which appears to act as a Bluetooth hub that wirelessly gathers card data from multiple compromised pumps at a given filling station.”

“The nation’s top mobile carrier said blockchain-based digital identification will make the process of verifying personal information much simpler and safer. The Korean and German firms will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress 2019 (MWC), scheduled to kick off on Monday in Barcelona. Under the MOU, SK Telecom and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs will work together to develop and commercialize blockchain-based mobile identification that can be utilized in various areas including access control, dealings and contracts.”

“Under the proposed new rules, identity cards will have to be produced in a uniform, credit card format (ID-1), include a machine-readable zone, and follow the minimum security standards set out by ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation). They will also need to include a photo and two fingerprints of the cardholder, stored in a digital format, on a contactless chip. ID cards will indicate the country code of the member state issuing them, inside an EU flag.”

“Same-day automated clearing house transactions more than doubled in 2018 and the value of those payments increased 83% in the first full year of same-day ACH debit service, NACHA reported Tuesday. The same-day volumes helped the sprawling ACH network continue its growth streak, with total payments up nearly 7% and the value of those payments increasing by more than 9%.”

“Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that commerce is a huge part of the 2019 road map for Facebook’s family of apps. But before people can easily buy things from Instagram  etc., Facebook needs their credit card info on file. That’s a potentially lucrative side effect of Instagram’s plan to launch a Fundraiser sticker in 2019. Facebook’s own Donate buttons have raised $1 billion, and bringing them to Instagram’s 1 billion users could do a lot of good while furthering Facebook’s commerce strategy.”

“In a recent analysis, Matt Swinehart, a senior counsel at Treasury, said a massive “regulatory rethink” of payment services won’t be required because many rules and standards governing payments are what he called technology neutral. The analysis appeared on a blog about the intersection between financial technology and government policy. Swinehart and the Treasury Department declined an interview request about his statements.”

“Understanding user perception when it comes to account value and security is a vast and complex topic that requires in-depth research. “

“Nigeria might be Africa’s largest economy, but when it comes to financial matters, people typically favour cash payments over technology. Despite high mobile penetration, only 6% of the population uses mobile phones to make financial transactions. And 60% of Nigerians still do not have a bank account, so they don’t have access to digital services on offer. In contrast, 73% of the population in Kenya have a mobile payment account.”

“In a cashless world, there would be no lower bound on interest rates. A central bank could reduce the policy rate from, say, 2 percent to minus 4 percent to counter a severe recession. The interest rate cut would transmit to bank deposits, loans, and bonds. Without cash, depositors would have to pay the negative interest rate to keep their money with the bank, making consumption and investment more attractive. This would jolt lending, boost demand, and stimulate the economy.

“Citymapper is becoming a fintech startup, sort of. The company announced a prepaid card called Citymapper Pass for users based in London. This new product is both a subscription service to aggregate all your transportation subscriptions and a plastic card to pay for your rides.”

“Bill.com, the digital business payments leader, today announced it is eliminating wire transfer fees for businesses paying electronically in local currencies using its International Payments solution. Businesses can now save time and even more money on the payments process while managing all their domestic and international payments in one simple workflow platform.”

“The study found that most people see a small bump in their scores immediately, but scores tend to decrease and are often a few points lower after one year.”

“A new study from Juniper Research has found that the operational cost savings from using chatbots in banking will reach $7.3 billion globally by 2023, up from an estimated $209 million in 2019. This represents time saved for banks in 2023 of 862 million hours, equivalent to nearly half a million working years.”

“Paytm Money will allow 42 million customers of Paytm Payments Bank to invest in mutual funds via netbanking or its app. Paytm Payments Bank customers will now be able to make their account as the primary bank account on Paytm Money for mutual fund transactions.”

“In November, eMarketer noted Walmart had overtaken Apple to become the No. 3 online retailer in the U.S., with Walmart (including its Jet and Sam’s Club brands) poised to capture 4 percent of all online retail by year-end. Amazon, of course, remained No. 1, followed by eBay.”

“Based in Italy, Neutrino helps map blockchain networks, and in particular crypto token transactions, to pull in information and insight. With the rise of thefts, that includes a major focus on services for law enforcement agencies to track stolen digital assets while it also includes tracking ransomware and analyzing “darknets.” Other solutions include tracking services for investment and finance companies to help find rising tokens and assets, an area Coinbase could clearly capitalize on as it goes after security token offerings.”

“Payments fraud is on the rise, and not even corporate giants are immune. In April 2017, a U.S. Justice Department investigation revealed that Facebook and Google were the victims of a $100 million payment scam by an Asian supplier. And two years ago, transactions fraud hit a record high of 78 percent, according to a survey of close to 700 treasury and finance professionals conducted by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), with email account compromise playing a outsized role.”

“British online payments start-up GoCardless has landed a $75 million investment backed by U.S. tech giants Alphabet — the parent company of Google — and Salesforce. The funding round was co-led by Alphabet’s venture arm GV and private equity firm Adams Street Partners. Existing investors Accel, Balderton Capital, Notion Capital and Passion Capital also contributed. London-based GoCardless processes direct debit payments on behalf of businesses. These are recurring transactions withdrawn directly from a customer’s bank account.”

“The administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador recently announced measures aimed at making financial services more affordable in a nation where more than half the population is unbanked. It is planning a digital payments system run and built by the central bank that will allow Mexicans to make and receive payments through their smartphones free of charge. A pilot roll-out for the platform, known as CoDi, is expected by March.”

“The U.S. government — along with a number of leading security companies — recently warned about a series of highly complex and widespread attacks that allowed suspected Iranian hackers to siphon huge volumes of email passwords and other sensitive data from multiple governments and private companies. But to date, the specifics of exactly how that attack went down and who was hit have remained shrouded in secrecy.”

“Apple Pay adoption show no signs of abating, with an estimated 43% of iPhone users across the globe enabling the mobile-payments service, says Loup Ventures LLC in a research note released Tuesday. That’s up from 36% in September and 20% in December 2017. Other estimates from the Minneapolis-based venture-capital firm suggest that 24% of U.S. iPhone owners have used Apple Pay. That’s less than the international rate of 47% in part because of greater acceptance on public transportation in China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Russia, Loup Venture says. The overall installed base of iPhone users is 900 million, the firm says, which means there are approximately 383 million Apple Pay users.”

“Veem, the simplest possible way for businesses to send money around the world, celebrated reaching 100,000 customers in 96 countries, by launching a first-of-its-kind rewards program, VeemRewards. The VeemRewards program gives businesses cash back for managing their business payments through Veem and ditching outdated bank wires.”

“The cashback incentive will target areas of the UK where access to cash has been identified as being more difficult, such as rural or less-affluent areas which often rely on a very small number of ATMs. It’s hoped that the initiative will also give customers more reasons to visit local shops at a time of unprecedented challenges for British high streets.”

“Newly-released in the Apple App Store, merchants and freelancers can now accept in-person payments for services rendered from millions of PayPal users.  While retail-grade in its functionality, the QR app with PayPal integration can also be used in a more casual way.  Family and friends can both pay and get paid with the Digital Debit® app by using a PayPal linked bank account, or a credit or debit card without sharing e-mails and mobile numbers.”

“Amazon has enabled payments via India’s unified payments interface for customers using Android smartphones, the segment that comprises the bulk of smartphone users in the country. The Seattle-based ecommerce giant’s Amazon Pay unit has partnered with India’s Axis Bank to issue UPI IDs to its customers. They can link their bank accounts on their Amazon mobile app and make fast, easy, and secure payments directly from their bank accounts, the company said in a press release on February 14.”

“The system’s implementation process will take 18 months before taking off in June 2020. Launching the platform known as Tanzania Instant Payment System (TIPS), the BoT Deputy Governor (Financial Stability and Deepening), Dr Bernard Kibesse, said the central bank and other payment providers realised the need for interoperability of mobile money services in order to facilitate instant transfers between customers of different service providers.”

“Credit-card companies are hiking a range of fees that U.S. merchants will pay to process transactions, a move likely to inflame already fractious relations between many businesses and card networks.”