“Merus Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture-capital firm, invested $1 million in North Little Rock-based Gas Pos, the two companies said Tuesday. The investment will allow Gas Pos to roll out its national plan to take its gasoline pump upgrades to independent gas retailers.”

“The QR-bill will contain a digitally readable QR code holding all the data for a payment, streamlining the processing of bills and credit transfers for companies, government bodies, non-profits and consumers. Companies will be able to print the QR-bill themselves and the bill recipient can trigger payment with just a few clicks on a smartphone. Incorrect entries of payment information will be displayed directly in ebanking and business software, and can be immediately corrected, saving time and investigation orders. “

“The United Overseas Bank (UOB) has announced the successful completion of a cross-border peer-to-peer funds transfer trial using mobile phone numbers. The bank said its proof of concept, touted as a first for the Asean region, saw real-time payments made and received between bank accounts linked to account-holders’ respective mobile phone numbers.”

“San Francisco based blockchain company Ripple has secured another major banking partner in Asia this week. ASEAN’s fifth largest bank, CIMB Group, as announced that it will join RippleNet in order to utilize the firm’s cross border transfer products. Its XRP token meanwhile has held on to second spot over Ethereum.”

“A new dispatch from our ‘QR Codes Are Very Much Alive In Asia’ reporting program: Hong Kong’s subway system will soon allow its commuters to pay by scanning QR codes thanks to a deal with Alibaba that was announced this week.”

“Mailchimp, the popular email newsletter service and marketing platform, today announced a partnership with Square that will allow its users to create landing pages with built-in e-commerce features. These shoppable landing pages are meant to give businesses a new sales channel to sell things like limited-edition goods or run-targeted promotions.”

“Starling Bank, the mobile-only bank has become the first mobile-only bank to partner with the Post Office to offer Everyday Banking services to its customers. The partnership will allow Starling current and business account customers to deposit and withdraw cash through the Post Office’s 11,500 branches nationwide.”

“More than 90% of shoppers combine digital and physical channels on the path to purchase, and four in 10 online shoppers are using buy-online, pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) checkout options. But the big news coming out of the 2018 holiday season isn’t how many shoppers are taking advantage of online-to-offline fulfillment. It’s how few retailers are offering it.”

“Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) today launched employee benefit offerings within Square Payroll, providing small businesses who use Square Payroll access to quality, affordable benefits like health insurance and retirement savings. Benefits are flexible, easy-to-use, and seamlessly integrate with the rest of Square Payroll, removing the administrative complexity businesses typically face with offering benefits.”

“Visa (NYSE: V) today announced a minority investment in BillDesk, a leading platform for online payments and bill payments in India. Visa’s investment and collaboration will help BillDesk develop new product lines for its payments and loyalty businesses and also expand its footprint into other geographies.”

“CPI Card Group Inc. (Nasdaq: PMTS; TSX: PMTS) (“CPI Card Group” or the “Company”), a global leader in financial and EMV® chip and dual interface card production and related services, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Canadian subsidiary to Allcard Limited (“Allcard”), a provider of non-secure card solutions to the gift and loyalty sectors.”

“The space’s startups have been mostly retailer-agnostic so far, and it’s no wonder why — brick-and-mortar space is expensive. San Francisco-based Standard Cognition this summer announced a partnership with Paltac in Japan that will see its autonomous checkout solution deployed in 3,000 stores, along with unnamed retailers in North America and Europe — and it’s impressed investors with its progress. The company today said that it has raised $40 million in series A funding led by Initialized Capital, with continued participation from CRV and Y Combinator. “

“Safaricom is responding to these challenges by developing an ecosystem that favors M-Pesa as a de facto payment system for other services. By building this proprietary infrastructure, the aim is to not only make the payment service indispensable to customers, but also yield a consistent experience on a daily basis.”

“The regulator said it suspects that the companies colluded in an effort to prefer Swiss payment provider Twint by agreeing not to release their credit cards for use by services like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. As part of the investigation, which started Nov. 13, offices of the companies were raided, the antitrust authority known as Comco said in a statement Thursday.”

“Vending machines selling clothing, makeup, electronics and high-end foods are cropping up at U.S. airports where officials are competing for passengers with improved amenities.”

“Deutsche Bank has launched Yunar, a wholly-owned subsidiary startup that is taking a loyalty-first approach to building out a fully featured mobile wallet by initially offering a simple way to manage up to 200 loyalty points schemes — and then gradually adding a range of mobile payments and banking services as adoption takes off.”

“Check Out with Me is expanding to every Supercenter by Black Friday – just in time for the holidays. Associates will help customers pay by simply swiping their credit card and providing them with a receipt (paper or electronic) wherever they are in the store. To make this service even more convenient, we are positioning associates in the busiest areas of the store, like the garden center, electronics or action alley.”

“American Express (NYSE:AXP) today announced the launch of American Express Go, a new digital solution to help mid-sized and large companies efficiently handle business expenses for temporary workers, recruits, and employees without Corporate Cards. American Express Go features a Virtual Card that can be used online or over the phone, and has the option for the virtual numbers to be printed on companion plastic Cards for in-person payments everywhere American Express is accepted.”

“Tandem, the U.K. challenger bank, is gearing up to launch a new “Auto Savings” feature — a clever way to lower the barriers for Tandem  app users who want to save for a rainy day — and to power the feature the company is partnering with Stripe. The latter in itself isn’t necessarily huge news when you consider that Stripe  is morphing into a payments company in the broadest sense. However, it does come at a time when other U.K. bank upstarts are attempting to wean users off making Stripe-powered card payments to top up their accounts since fees can soon add up.”

“By number, U.S. consumers report paying 4 in 10 bills by electronic means—for example, by using their online banking bill pay function or providing a bank account number at a biller’s website. By dollar value, the practice of using electronic transactions to pay bills is also prevalent: about half of bill payments by dollar value are made using online banking bill pay or bank account number payment. These are among findings from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, a survey of U.S. consumers released in September of this year.”

“The CBN data show that 120 million PoS transactions were recorded in H1 2018, representing an increase of 103% y/y. The volume of point-of-sale (PoS) transactions indicates the impact of the CBN’s cashless policy on the economy. Meanwhile, mobile payments amounted to 28 million transactions valued at N495bn (US$1.6bn) in H1 2018. The volume of transactions grew by 14% y/y but accounted for only 4.7% of total electronic transactions (see chart).”

“As Singapore accelerates its journey towards a cashless society, the use of mobile payments* is gaining traction among Singaporeans. According to The Future of Payments Study** conducted by UnionPay International and Nielsen with 400 Singapore consumers aged 18 to 65, 58% of Singaporeans have used at least one form of mobile payment in the past three months, and close to one in four (23%) mobile payment users have used the three key mobile payment methods – QR code, peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and contactless payments – within the same period.”

“As a proportion of total payments, mobile transactions in the UK have jumped from 1.3% in Q3 2016 to 5.6% in Q3 2018, representing an overall increase of 331%. Compared to this time last year, mobile payments have increased by 60%. The data comes amid growing popularity among consumers as retailers become increasingly willing and able to accept mobile payments. In the contactless £30 range, the number of transactions accounted for by mobile payments increased from 1.8% in Q3 2016, to 4.6% in Q3 2017 and then 7% in Q3 2018.”

“Forty-five percent of all U.S. consumers rank mobile devices, including smart phones and tablets, as “quickly becoming [their] most important” shopping tools, says GfK. As for making a mobile payment, however, 17% say they used a smart phone or tablet in the last six months to pay for a product. The global average is 19%, and the peak is 29% in Asia Pacific.”

“California’s new SB 327 law, which will take effect in January 2020, requires all “connected devices” to have a “reasonable security feature.” The good news is that the term “connected devices” is broadly defined to include just about everything connected to the Internet. The not-so-good news is that “reasonable security” remains defined such that companies trying to avoid compliance can argue that the law is unenforceable.”

“If you own a domain name that gets decent traffic and you fail to pay its annual renewal fee, chances are this mistake will be costly for you and for others. Lately, neglected domains have been getting scooped up by crooks who use them to set up fake e-commerce sites that steal credit card details from unwary shoppers.”

“PNC Bank is piloting dynamic CVV cards that use an e-ink screen on the reverse of the card to display a continuously updated three-digit CVV security code. The US-based bank plans to begin offering the cards to its Treasury Management division’s commercial cardholders in early 2019. PNC is using cards based on Visa’s Dynamic CVV2 Specification (dCVV2) for the pilot and is working with Idemia and Tsys, as well as Visa, on the project.”

“The filing, awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Tuesday, contends that large companies – specifically enterprise-level institutions – may want to store cryptocurrencies for customers should they see wider adoption.”

“Following through on plans disclosed earlier this year, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday formally unveiled the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an industry group charged with collaborating to spur the adoption of faster payments and identify market opportunities. The 22 inaugural members range from retailing giant Walmart Inc. to Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. to some big banks, tech companies, processors, and automated clearing house governing body NACHA. The faster payments effort aims to clear and settle payments in near real time.”

“What role will remain for cash in this digital world? Already signs in store windows read “cash not accepted.” Not just in Scandinavia, the poster child of a cashless world. In various other countries too, demand for cash is decreasing—as shown in recent IMF work. And in ten, twenty, thirty years, who will still be exchanging pieces of paper?”

“Chase, the consumer banking arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, -1.50%  announced Wednesday that it would be sending out contactless Visa Inc. V, +0.45% credit cards beginning in the first half of 2019. The company will roll out tap-enabled cards on an ongoing basis when customers open up new accounts or have a card that’s up for renewal. Chase will launch contactless debit cards starting in the second half of 2019.”

“UK regional transportation operator Network West Midlands is piloting a new service that lets its Swift transit card holders store their cards in Google Pay, enabling Android NFC phone owners to tap on to West Midlands Metro trams without needing to first open an app or select their Swift card.”

“The mobile billing solution now available as part of the BillingTree CareView and Payrazr platforms can also be adopted as a stand-alone service. It enables accounts receivables management agencies, healthcare providers, financial institutions and other billers to communicate directly with consumers via their smartphones and facilitates fast, frictionless payments on the same channel.”

“More than $35 billion in transactions were processed through Venmo in 2017 alone³. BigCommerce merchants using Braintree can now present a more intelligent personalized checkout experience, providing customers the option to choose from multiple payment options, including Venmo and PayPal Credit. When shoppers have Venmo enabled as a payment method on their mobile devices, it will automatically appear alongside other supported payment types, without any coding requirements by the merchant.”

“New benchmark data from ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, revealed a projected 14 percent increase in fraud attempts during the upcoming 2018 peak holiday season, based on hundreds of millions of merchant transactions, including some the world’s leading global retail brands. As consumers and merchants prepare for the busiest shopping season of the year, the projected data shows that fraud attempts are likely to peak on Thanksgiving Day.”

“During the Fintech Week in San Francisco the Dutch fintech scale-up Bitsafe opened up registrations for its borderless Basic Payment Account to anyone in the world. A Basic Payment Account works just like a local bank account. Bitsafe account holders can make deposits, make payments and withdraw funds. Every Bitsafe account comes with a unique IBAN which allows sending and receiving payments globally, including to and from the SEPA region.”

“Google’s aptly named payment service, Google Pay, has been gradually moving into all corners of the globe. The latest country to be added to the list is the United Arab Emirates. While not officially announced, the United Arab Emirates was added to various Google Pay support pages today, indicating its imminent availability.”

“NCR Corporation has acquired StopLift Checkout Vision Systems, an intelligent computer vision systems provider for retail POS platforms. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. With the growth of Amazon Go and other competing technologies in the cashierless self-checkout space, NCR is reinforcing its focus on self-checkout solutions.”

“Obtaining a banking license and then launching an actual new retail bank requires capital. A lot of capital. Enter Zopa, the U.K. peer-to-peer lending company that wants to become a bank, which today is announcing that it has closed £60 million in further funding. Only £16 million is actually new new money, having already disclosed £44 million in August, so this is effectively an extension of that earlier fund-raise.”

“US neo bank Simple has named a former Amazon executive as its new CEO, in a rare example of talent returning from Big Tech to the banking industry. David Hijirida quit Seattle-based Washington Mutual in 2007 to help build Amazon’s online payments business, before moving on to act as a director of Amazon Web Services and the e-commerce giant’s advertising arm.”

“Instead of frantically inputting payment passwords to grab deals, Chinese users jumped on new technologies to shop in the blink of an eye. This year, 60.3 percent of Singles’ Day customers paid either by scanning their fingerprint or taking a selfie.”

“The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Singapore Exchange (SGX) have developed delivery versus payment (DvP) capabilities for the settlement of tokenised assets across different blockchain platforms. As reported in August, the pair signed a collaboration to develop this DvP. Anquan, Deloitte and Nasdaq were appointed as technology partners for this project. It was one of two spin-offs from Project Ubin.”

“For those headed to the farm, local charity lot, or retailer, Square data shows the Christmas tree buying season kicks into high gear on Black Friday with average price of $77, and prices spike on Cyber Monday, reaching $81. For those looking for a deal, holding out until the week before Christmas could save you about 22%. Prices for procrastinators hit an all time low on Christmas Eve at $47.”

“PXP, a global provider of omni-channel payment gateway solutions, and Diners Club International, a business unit of Discover Financial Services and part of the Discover Global Network have announced an agreement that will expand Discover card acceptance globally.”

“Founded by entrepreneur Max Levchin, the company announced the launch of a retail discovery tool that shows consumers where to use Affirm. Additionally, existing Affirm customers will be shown individually tailored offers at select merchants most relevant to their shopping habits via the Affirm app and customer portal, including exclusive offers not available via Affirm broadly.”

“Poynt today announced a $100 million Series C raise, including strategic partners Elavon and National Australia Bank (NAB). With this investment, the company will expand into new markets across Asia, Europe and South America, grow its talent base, and invest in product and partner development as it executes its vision to become the operating system (OS) on smart payment terminals worldwide.”

“The cloud-based Credit as a Service solution for mid-market businesses can issue credit lines in less than a minute, automate the customer onboarding process and apply unique B2B customer invoicing, accounts payable and payment term requirements – providing customers flexibility and an enhanced experience.”

“Fallback fraud is an activity that typically comes and goes fairly quickly after a nation converts to EMV chip card payments, but it has stuck around longer than usual in the United States, ACG said. But issuers are getting smarter about identifying and thwarting it, according to Goldman. “They’re looking at dollar amounts, they’re looking at velocity thresholds [the number of transactions in a given time period], any sort of prior fallback activity on the same account,” Goldman tells Digital Transactions News.”

“Big banks are enlisting the local DMV in their fight against identity fraud. Lenders including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. , Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are looking for ways to link up with databases at state departments of motor vehicles and other government offices to make sure potential customers are who they say they are.”

“Voice assistants are potentially privacy nightmares as they proceed to monitor more and more elements of our daily lives. That fear, however, hasn’t seemed to put a dent in sales. As the holiday shopping season approaches, voice-powered smart speakers are again expected to be big sellers, adding to the approximately one-quarter to one-third of the U.S. population that already owns a smart speaker and uses a voice assistant at least once a month.”

“With the reveal of its 2018 holiday shopping preview today, Blackhawk Network expects strong holiday gift card sales led by the dining, movie, sporting goods, beauty supply and specialty home goods categories. The new report* examines trends from Blackhawk’s own U.S. sales data in addition to insights from its 2018 State of Consumer Gift Card Preferences survey.”