“PayPal  this week announced an expanded relationship with American Express that will allow cardholders to use their Membership Rewards points when shopping from PayPal merchants, as well as more integrated experience within both PayPal and the Amex apps, among other things. The deal is similar to those PayPal earlier struck with Visa and MasterCard., and follows a series of partnerships it has made across the industry, including others with Apple, Google, Samsung, and, most recently, Walmart, designed to increase its PayPal’s visibility and adoption.”

“Mobile payment growth contributed to 40 percent of that payment volume, with 45 percent growth in mobile payment volume for the quarter. Its total payment transactions surged 27 percent to 2.5 billion total for the quarter.”

“Societe Generale is testing the idea of issuing bank cards that incorporate a built-in fingerprint verification sensor with the aim of using the added security the cards provide to allow customers to make contactless payments “with no limit on the amount.””

“Discover today announced its support of EMVCo’s v0.9 release of the EMV [®*] Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) draft specification and emphasized the importance of EMVCo’s additional step to provide an opportunity to all industry stakeholders to comment on the standards before the first complete version is issued in 2019.”

“Square’s goal with Terminal is to get businesses to replace their legacy payment terminals with Square Payments point-of-sale software. Business owners can charge customers by manually inputting a payment amount, or by selecting from the inventory displayed on the screen. Sellers can add items and track sales through Square software, which they can set up on their phones or desktops. “

“The striking trend, described in an unpublished report shared with the Guardian, shows the rate at which the world is getting online has fallen sharply since 2015, with women and the rural poor substantially excluded from education, business and other opportunities the internet can provide.”

“Europe is largely dependent on non-European systems, such as PayPal, for cross-border (card) payments. The reason for this is that there is still no European payment system for the whole continent, partly because European banks mainly focus on serving their national markets. In the development of new payment services, this must change, says Yves Mersch, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB). Mersch explains why it is important that Europe is not reliant on non-European payment providers and why he hopes that in the future there will be a global payment solution coming from the eurozone.”

“The name of someone receiving a payment will be as important as their banking details for the first time from next summer, in an attempt to combat fraud. At present, anyone wanting to transfer money enters the intended recipient’s name, account number and sort code. However, the name is not checked. Under plans from the UK’s payments operator, the sender will be alerted if the name does not match the account. Banks have been accused of dragging their heels in introducing the system.”

“Mina Dimyan frequents a Stamford, Conn., cafe, where he orders a cup of strong coffee for $3. It comes with a splash of guilt.”

“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a venture founded by one of its former partners, billionaire Mike Novogratz, are investing in cryptocurrency custodian BitGo Holdings Inc., as the bank’s deep-pocketed clients keep asking about secure ways to hold those assets.”

“Mobile and online platforms are now the most common way Americans access their bank accounts, but some still prefer the branch, according to new research from the American Bankers Association. The survey of 2,201 adults found that 72% most often access their bank accounts online or via mobile platforms, compared to 18% who said they do most of their banking transactions in person at a branch.”

“eBay.com Inc. on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc. accusing the company of illegally poaching sellers on its marketplace via eBay’s internal messaging system. The lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County in California, accuses Amazon of having “perpetrated a scheme to infiltrate and exploit eBay’s internal member email system” over the past few years. The alleged scheme was used by dozens of Amazon sales representatives in the U.S. and abroad to recruit high-value eBay sellers to Amazon, the lawsuit said.”

“Pay will be available as a widget within Twilio Studio, a drag-and-drop voice interaction design workflow, starting this week, with Stripe as the initial launch partner. Pay starts at $0.10 per transaction, and will be broadly available next year. Pay is a prompt-based system: When a customer’s on the line with a contact center agent and ready to complete a transaction, Pay steps in automatically, instructing customers to enter their credit card information. It automatically pauses call recordings when Pay is activated, and resumes the recording once the transaction’s been completed.”

“Starting in April 2019, Mastercard issuers globally will no longer be required to include a signature panel on the back of Mastercard products. This change follows the move to allow merchants the option to collect cardholder signatures for in-store purchases. Mastercard led the industry with this announcement in the U.S. and Canada last fall, and now extends this option to merchants around the globe.”

“Financial institutions, fintech firms and industry groups announced the launch of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), a non-profit organization to unify the financial sector around the secure exchange of financial data. FDX will address common challenges around the way the industry shares consumer account information to enhance security, innovation and consumer controls. FDX is a subsidiary of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC).”

“Dubbed “Azimo Business,” it lets SMEs across the U.K. and Europe send payments to an impressive 189 countries — including many emerging markets, which is Azimo’s traditional focus — and at a price the company claims undercuts banks by 50 percent or more.”

“The Indian government has decided to shelve its draft ecommerce policy for the time being and will instead put in place a set of rules arrived at in consultation with the country’s top two ecommerce companies, Flipkart and Amazon, according to two senior government officials.”

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has issued the final set of guidelines for new rules designed to enable mobile wallet users to easily make payments and transfer funds to users of competing mobile wallet services. Reserve Bank of IndiaThe new rules are set out in Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) — Guidelines for Interoperability, which was published on 16 October 2018.”

“Financial messaging platform Swift has published a blueprint for common API standards in collaboration with European banking standards bodies Stet and the Berlin Group. The aim is to offer an open, harmonised and interoperable set of APIs as means to reduce complexity and guard against multiple competing standards for bank data sharing.”

“Today, First Data (NYSE: FDC), a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, announces the results of its 2018 Consumer Cybersecurity Study. The study explores the attitudes and actions of today’s consumers towards securing their Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and identifies trends that can give financial institutions, retailers, service providers and individuals themselves an extra edge in the battle for personal data.”

“The energy consumed by a debit card transaction could light an 8-watt bulb for 90 minutes, compared with two hours for a purchase using banknotes and coins, the researchers wrote in a working paper published Monday. Their work is based on 2015 data from the Netherlands, where debit cards made up about 99 percent of all card transactions.”

“Called Fidelity Digital Assets, the limited liability corporation based in Boston will provide enterprise-grade custody solutions, a cryptocurrency trading execution platform and institutional advising services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, designed to align with blockchain’s always-on trading cycle.”

“Singapore is about to introduce a new law to prevent shadow banking by requiring mobile wallet operators and payments startups to ring-fence deposits so they don’t function as unregulated banks.”

“Headquartered in Adelaide, Australia, ADVAM is one of the world’s leading providers of unattended payments and eCommerce solutions to the parking, airport, shopping center, government and self-service sectors. ADVAM processes millions of transactions and reservations daily in over 20 countries.”

“The report finds that it will take more than bank-led initiatives to grow the new payments landscape. The broader financial services community – including public-sector organizations, regulators and third parties – must determine their new roles and work together with large payment users to ensure a smooth, balanced, and robust payments ecosystem development.”

“his unprecedented solution enables NMI partners to deliver a simplified payments platform that meets today’s expectations for seamless recognition across all merchant points of engagement, including in-store, mobile, online and self-service. Using a unified token, NMI is able to deliver a singular view of customer and payment data that can be used to develop cross-channel solutions, generate new revenue streams and improve customer experience.”

“American Express (Amex) has partnered with online financing platform ezbobto offer UK SMEs competitive access to finance. Through this partnership, eligible Amex business clients will receive a referral to apply for up to £300,000 in finance from ezbob at a fixed annual interest rate from 3%.”

“Alibaba‘s payment affiliate Ant Financial has pumped in another $210 million in restaurant discovery and food-delivery platform Zomato, as the company ramps of spending for its market leadership battle against rival Swiggy.”

“In the hotly contested market for person-to-person transactions, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo unit has rarely made a misstep. But over the weekend the popular service said it will raise its fee from 25 cents to 1% for so-called instant transfers users make to move money from their Venmo account to a bank account, with a 25-cent minimum.”

“Our household survey data suggests that about 73% of Somalis above the age of 16 use mobile money services at least once a month – though most use it a few times a month, and high income earners use it a lot more. About 155 million mobile money transactions take place every month.”

“Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are among international payment companies set to miss a Monday deadline for certifying their compliance with data localization requirements set by India’s central bank, people familiar with the matter said.”

““The myth that brands indulge in deeper discounting during [the] sales period as compared to [the] non-sales period is not really true,” Ace Turtle, which gathered data across one million products sold by more than 30 fashion brands to over 20,000 postcodes, found.”

“With Ethoca Eliminator, American Express can help prevent disputes for U.S. merchants by providing more detailed transaction information in real-time to card members who call customer service because they do not recognize a charge on their account. The Ethoca Eliminator platform retrieves transaction information from merchants who are using the tool, enabling American Express’ Customer Care Professionals to relay the clarifying information to the card member while on the phone.”

“Allied Wallet is now offering several of the most popular alternative payment options in Brazil, as they are now compatible with Allied Wallet’s digital eWallet services. Allied Wallet is now compatible with Boleto Bancário, Hipercard, Banco do Brasil, AstroPay Card, Santander, Elo, Bradesco, Aura, Cartao MercadoLivre, and Itaú. The average internet user in Brazil spends about $560 USD online and online shopping is expected to grow 64% in the next three years (Forrester); however, 47% are concerned about security online.”

“BitPay, the largest global blockchain payments provider, today announced the option for merchants to receive settlement in Circle and the CENTRE USD//Coin (USDC) and the Gemini Dollar (GUSD), which are both stable coins pegged to the US Dollar. Merchants and businesses around the world can accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash and now have the additional option to receive their settlement in a US dollar-equivalent cryptocurrency.”