“San Francisco-based Plaid is weighing a range of funding offers, including one from Kleiner Perkins Cauflield & Byersthat values the financial-technology startup at as much as $3 billion, a person familiar with the matter said. Another investor valued the company at about $2 billion earlier this week, but that was eclipsed by Kleiner’s offer, according to a different person familiar with the situation.”

“The funding will help Adhara continue its work on international payments, which includes introducing central banks to the type of cryptography normally confined to math labs and academic circles.”

“Who gets to govern India’s thriving payments ecosystem? The matter has become the latest bone of contention between the country’s central bank and prime minister Narendra Modi’s government.”

“Paytm, run by One 97 Communications Ltd, has launched a barcode-based smartphone payment service called PayPay in Japan, in a joint venture with SoftBank Corporation and Yahoo Japan Corporation, the company said in a statement on Monday.”

“With web browsers cracking down on ad trackers, data privacy laws going into effect and data breaches remaining ever present, it is presumably not a great time for marketers to be dependent on data that they acquire from other companies. These trends give marketers incentive to use less third-party data that they obtain from companies without direct user relationships, and instead, use more first-party data that they collect directly from their customers.”

“”What the trial sought to establish was whether, by integrating and enabling the service via gpi members into a domestic instant payment system, the gpi experience could be extended deeper into domestic markets, to end beneficiaries’ accounts, even outside normal business hours,” SWIFT explained.”

“Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) today announced new product details surrounding digital identity in preparation for a first quarter 2019 launch of Visa B2B Connect. This one-of-a-kind distributed ledger-based platform is designed to give financial institutions a simple, fast and secure way to process cross border business-to-business payments globally.”

“Marqeta, the open-API platform pioneering the future of modern card issuing, today announced its expansion into the European market. In collaboration with strategic partner Visa, Marqeta has acquired new customers and opened a London office led by a team of U.K.-based industry experts. Marqeta is leveraging its success in the U.S. and Canada to expand its platform for modern card issuing.”

“NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Allentown, Pa.-based JetPay (NASDAQ: JTPY), a provider of end-to-end payment processing and Human Capital Management solutions.”

“Verifone today announced the introduction of Navigator, the first-of-its-kind payment feature with a fully integrated touchscreen to earn certification for accessibility and usability by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), a United Kingdom-based charity. Further, Navigator meets PCI requirements – an information security standard mandated and administered by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to reduce credit card fraud.”

“Today synthetic identities are not always created using valid information from multiple consumers. Many are composed of invalid information with no ties to a known consumer – making them increasingly difficult to detect. With no victim to report that their identity has been stolen, or conflicting personal identifying information (PII) to raise a red flag, fraudsters can operate undetected for years, building up credit with multiple institutions before busting out and vanishing without a trace.”

“Today at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, Klarna, a leading global payments provider, introduced their Slice it in 4 payment option, which allows consumers to pay for purchases in installments using their own debit or credit card. In conjunction with the launch, Klarna has signed its first U.S. merchant, Rancourt & Co., premium leather shoe crafters, to use the offering.”

“The report reveals a surge in mobile and phishing fraud schemes, a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning as the growing trends in identity verification, and the strategic role identity verification plays in the quest to gain a competitive edge, retain and attract customers, and increase revenue.”

“With fraudulent chargebacks on the rise and the onus of liability shifting to the restaurant operators for non-EMV compliant payments, The Saltwater Grille chose to install TableSafe’s EMV-certified RAIL™ payment platform, instead of investing in an entirely new POS system. Before installing TableSafe’s platform, The Saltwater Grille was not equipped to accept EMV payments and experienced two to three chargebacks a week.”

“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. “

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 latest quarterly consumer trends research from Fiserv, Inc.(NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, shows that as the importance of digital engagement has grown, so has consumer comfort using non-financial companies to conduct financial activities. While consumers remain most comfortable with traditional financial organizations, a growing number of consumers say they would use a technology company such as Apple or Google to pay bills, take out a loan and conduct other financial activities.”

“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.”