“Square has acquired GoParrot, an all-in-one digital ordering and marketing platform for restaurants. GoParrot enables restaurants to connect more easily and directly with customers through powerful omnichannel software. As a long-time Square partner, GoParrot’s products already integrate with Square’s ecosystem of solutions. With GoParrot, Square sellers can offer an exceptional customer experience with a customizable white-label app that merchants can design to be unique to their brand. Through the app, buyers can seamlessly place orders while also viewing top selling items and deal popups for enhanced personalization. Restaurants can also increase buyer retention by offering consumers an easy way to track loyalty rewards right from their mobile device.”

“Plaid is moving into identity verification in a crucial expansion beyond its roots connecting banks and fintechs — a move that could put it in more direct competition with Stripe, another company known for its financial software tools. In conjunction with its Plaid Forum customer conference this week, the company is also announcing two products focused on ACH transfers as it moves into payments.”

“We’ve [Swift] extended our Case Management product suite beyond just gpi-enabled banks. That means that everyone in our community can now benefit from our Stop and Recall and Case Resolution services. Within the world of payments, things don’t always go to plan. Whether that’s an incorrect account number that needs to be repaired or a fraudulent transaction that needs to be reversed. And too often these exceptions and investigations can be time consuming, taking hours of back and forth just to get clarity on the status of a payment. For every minute that an investigation takes, it’s the end-customer who ends up waiting longer for their money….By extending Case Management to our entire community, non-gpi banks can now fully benefit from both Case Resolution and Stop and Recall. This brings us one step closer to our goal of a frictionless, industry-wide solution for exceptions and investigations.”

“Thousands of families across Australia are set to try out Kit, a new CommBank-supported money app that could revolutionise how kids learn to earn, save, spend, and manage money, in the digital economy. The app has been launched today as a trial by x15ventures (CommBank’s venture arm), as new research highlights the increasing difficulties parents face as kids grow up using digital devices and the use of cash is declining rapidly.”

“Quontic Bank announced the opening of its outpost in Decentraland, the first banking experience in the Metaverse. Quontic began as a community bank over a decade ago and has evolved into a fully digital national bank with an innovative, customer-centric approach that has led the industry in offering some of the most groundbreaking experiences and products. “Quontic was the first bank to offer Bitcoin rewards on checking accounts, the first to offer a wearable payment solution, and now, the first to open an outpost in the Metaverse,” said Steve Schnall, CEO of Quontic Bank. “Banking once required consumers to visit a location and rely on printed documents to manage their money with personal support from a teller, today we carry all of that power in our pockets on an app, but the experience is cold. In the not so distant future our customers will have the best of both worlds and this outpost is the first step towards that level of service.”

“Mastercard is piloting new technology that lets shoppers make payments with just their face or hand at the checkout point. The company on Tuesday launched a program for retailers to offer biometric payment methods, like facial recognition and fingerprint scanning. At checkout, users will be able to authenticate their payment by showing their face or the palm of their hand instead of swiping their card. The program has already gone live in five St Marche grocery stores in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mastercard says it plans to roll it out globally later this year.”

“The president of the Central Bank of Brazil confirmed that the country’s sovereign digital currency pilot will go live this year, Cointelegraph Brazil reported . The confirmation about the digital currency came during an event on Monday, where Roberto Campos Neto, the president of the Central Bank of Brazil, noted that a pilot CBDC program could go live in the second half of this year. The value of the upcoming CBDC would be pegged against the national fiat payment system STR (Reserve Transfer System). Neto also confirmed that “Digital Real” would have a fixed supply and only a certain amount of it would be minted, quite similar to Bitcoin.”

“Faster payments have become a way of life for many consumers who regularly use mobile devices to track their finances as well as payment apps to send and receive payments among friends and family. Now, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve (PDF) , consumers are seeking faster payments in even more areas of their increasingly on-demand lives.”

“In February, Apple announced a new system called to Tap to Pay on iPhone which allows an individual to take a contactless payment, only using their iPhone as the payment terminal. With the feature active, a customer simply has to tap their NFC iPhone or bank card on the top of the receiving device’s phone, to enact a contactless transaction.”

“The Central Bank of Ireland has widened its consumer protection rules to cover so-called ‘buy-now-pay-later’ (BNPL) firms. It means companies offering “indirect credit” to customers, allowing them to spread the cost of purchases over instalments while charging them interest, will now need to be authorised by the regulator, the Central Bank said in a statement.”

“Routable, a modern and intuitive business payments platform, with a focus on mass payouts, today announced the launch of Real-Time Payments (RTP®), which allows businesses to securely pay vendors and contractors within seconds. Routable built RTP® leveraging its extensive experience in mass payouts, so it can accommodate businesses as they scale from 250 payouts per month to over 100,000.  This is a significant competitive advantage for companies looking to strengthen relationships with key third parties and improve operational efficiency at scale.”

“Today, Square marks another key milestone in its integration of Afterpay, extending buy now, pay later (BNPL) functionality to its millions of in-person sellers in the United States and Australia. Just three months after first bringing Afterpay into the Square ecosystem with e-commerce integration, Square and Afterpay moved swiftly to unlock the ability for sellers using any Square point of sale software – Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, Square Appointments, or Square for Restaurants – to now offer Afterpay across online and in-person commerce.”

“Zilch, a next-generation payments and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform, with a BNPL 2.0 business model that works directly with consumers and features no fees or late charges along with 2% instant cashback rewards, has launched in the US with over 150,000 pre- registered customers. Zilch is accepted everywhere Mastercard can be used… Utilizing a blend of Open Banking technology combined with soft credit checks and its own proprietary behavioral data each time a customer spends allows Zilch to develop a real-time view of a consumer’s financial health. That enables Zilch to create a 360 degree picture of a customer’s affordability profile, and provide accurate, individualized spending recommendations. Concurrent with its launch, Zilch, is partnering with Experian to pioneer reciprocal reporting of payment plans to the credit reporting agency’s (CRA’s) data set. This is designed to help ensure consumers’ financial health by providing greater transparency and accuracy, while rewarding customers for their responsible behavior allowing them to build credit scores.”

“Sellers in a hurry to access money stored in their PayPal accounts will pay higher fees to use its Instant Transfer service beginning next month. However, sellers who can wait 1-3 business days to transfer funds to their bank account or debit card will continue to pay no fees for Standard Bank Transfers….Two significant Instant Transfer fee changes that will roll out on June 17, 2022 include the following: – Instant Transfer fees for PayPal Consumer Accounts will go from 1.5% plus a $0.25 minimum/$15 max to 1.75% plus a $0.25 minimum and a $25 maximum. – Instant Transfer fees for PayPal Business accounts will remain at 1.5% of the transfer amount, but the $0.25 minimum fee will go to $0.50, and PayPal will remove the existing $15 maximum cap on fees.”

“Global payments platform Adyen has expanded its partnership with AfterPay allowing more of Adyen’s merchants in more countries worldwide to use the Buy Now Pay Later provider…Afterpay is working with Adyen to process payments across key markets, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, the US, and the UK to support the company’s global growth and momentum.”

“The metaverse, defined as a network of 3D virtual worlds or a virtual reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users, is quickly gaining popularity. With multiple uses and features of this virtual reality space being discovered and explored every day, it is clear that metaverse very well could be the next big thing. Several factors, including technology innovations and the rise of the experience economy, are fuelling this rapid growth. For businesses across sectors, the metaverse opens up a number of challenges and opportunities. Already, gaming, media, and entertainment are a big component of the metaverse. It is only a matter of time before the banking, commerce and financial services industries jump onto the bandwagon.”

“Up till now, WhatsApp users could simply enter any name of their choice of up to 25 characters, even emojis. But this will change now. WhatsApp will now ask users for their ‘legal’ names to proceed with UPI-based payments on the platform. These ‘legal’ names are the names associated with the users’ bank accounts. They can be different from the profile names and will be displayed to the receiver. This change comes after the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) guidelines were set by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to crack down on payment frauds.”

“Should Zelle be used for retail payment? It already is! There is a pressure in a number of markets to look at the use of account-to-account (A2A) payments for retail transactions, bypassing traditional card payments by allowing payments to go directly from consumer bank accounts to retailer and service provider bank accounts. In the US, for example, stakeholders are beginning to look at whether to extend Zelle in this direction. Zelle continues to grow strongly (Bank of America BAC -1.4% customers made more Zelle transactions than wrote paper checks for the first time ever last year) and it is therefore no surprise that discussions are heating up. (According to the Wall Street Journal, Wells Fargo WFC -1.8% and Bank of America are in favour of expanding into retail while JPMorgan is not convinced the time is right.)”

“The text, adopted with 495 votes to 34, and 102 abstentions, says that the public debate on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) should focus on the technology’s enormous potential to complement human labour. It notes that the EU has fallen behind in the global race for tech leadership. There is a risk that standards will be developed elsewhere, often by non-democratic actors, while [Members of the European Parliament] MEPs believe the EU needs to act as a global standard-setter in AI…Noting the EU’s push for a global agreement on common standards for the responsible use of AI, MEPs encourage like-minded democracies to work together to jointly shape this international debate. They also stress that AI technologies could pose important ethical and legal questions, and voice concerns about military research and technological developments into lethal autonomous weapon systems.”

“As more and more people open themselves up to the idea of international business, there comes the need for a reliable payment platform that works well. Of course, PayPal, Skrill and other players are serving this need but more could be done. In Kenya, M-PESA is a household name when it comes to mobile payments and transactions in general. For a while now, there has been need to make M-PESA more compatible with global systems. Today, users of M-PESA can easily transact to and from PayPal. In a move that could be seen as the mobile money platform embracing international transactions fully, word now has it that Safaricom is planning to introduce Virtual Visa cards in a bid to enhance and enable seamless international payments. While announcing the telco’s Financial Year results, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa revealed that the carrier will be launching M-PESA GlobalPay, an M-PESA service that will be powered by Visa Virtual Cards for international online payments.”

“The global economy’s digital transformation is accelerating, and community and regional banks are seeking ways to offer the most advanced digital capabilities and open new channels for distribution. To help these financial institutions meet the growing need for digitally-native banking experiences and grow their client base, FIS® has announced a new embedded finance offering developed in partnership with Treasury Prime…The first financial institution to tap into FIS’ embedded finance services is Grasshopper, a leading-edge, digital commercial bank. Grasshopper partnered with HUMBL, a Web 3 blockchain company with both consumer and commercial divisions, to utilize their bank services, powered by FIS and Treasury Prime, across its user base.”

“[Amex] We’re working with Google to let Card Members* convert to and save virtual card numbers (VCN) when they use Autofill on Chrome and Android. Virtual card numbers make shopping online and in Android apps safer by replacing the 15-digit physical card number with a virtual number, or token, which provides an extra layer of protection from potential fraud. Virtual card numbers also automatically populate a dynamic four-digit security code (CID), making checkout that much easier and helping to protect you from potential fraud…To get started with a virtual card number, Card Members checking out with an eligible card using Autofill on Chrome and Android will be prompted to create a virtual card number. Once a virtual card number is created, the Card Member will see the option to pay for their next transaction using their virtual card number whenever they use Autofill at checkout on Chrome or Android. During the checkout process, American Express will also generate a dynamic CID that will allow Card Members to skip the step of having to enter in the four digits displayed on the front of their card. Physical card numbers are not shared with merchants, adding an extra layer of card security.”

“Google is launching a new Google Wallet app on Android and Wear OS, looking to streamline its payments products and lock users into Android more tightly. The move is part of a broader effort by tech giants Google and Apple to bind consumers more closely into their mobile devices by making the digital wallet as essential to consumers’ everyday lives as the physical wallet. That means making the digital wallet not just a way to pay at the point of sale with a credit card but also use tickets, IDs and other essential items. The new Google Wallet, announced Wednesday at Google I/O and available sometime in early summer, will handle all credit and payment cards as well as nonpayment items you would have in your physical wallet, such as driver’s licenses or state IDs, library cards, concert tickets, boarding passes, vaccine cards and loyalty cards. Google is also working on supporting other pass types, like hotel keys and office badges.”

“Klarna, a leading global retail bank, payments, and shopping service, today announced the launch of its Virtual Shopping offering, bringing the best of in-store to the online experience. Virtual Shopping by Klarna enables consumers to browse and buy online with confidence by connecting them directly with in-store experts through live chats and video calls to receive product advice and inspiration. For retailers, Virtual Shopping empowers in-store teams to bring their expertise beyond the walls of physical stores to millions of shoppers online. By using the new merchant-facing Klarna Store App, in-store teams can share photos and videos of items and demo products live directly from the store floor, from home, or even from emerging dark store concepts. This in turn drives brand engagement and loyalty while reducing return rates. The launch builds upon the successful acquisition of Hero, a social shopping platform and leader in virtual shopping services, last year.”

“When early in April the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) penalised six top banks a total of N1.3bn ($3.1m) for violating its directive against facilitating transactions in cryptocurrencies, it was the latest sign that the country’s crypto problem won’t easily go away. Access Bank got the biggest fine of N500m, followed by FCMB with N400m and Stanbic IBTC with N200m. United Bank for Africa and Wema Bank were slapped with N100m naira each, and Fidelity Bank N14.28m. With the government prohibition, the onus has been on the banks to detect accounts used to trade in cryptocurrencies.”