“As of Jan. 1, mobile payment apps like Venmo, PayPal, Zelle and Cash App are required to report commercial transactions totaling more than $600 per year to the Internal Revenue Service. The change to the tax code was signed into law as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, the Covid-19 response bill passed in March.  Previously, these mobile payment apps only had to tell the tax authorities when a person had over 200 commercial transactions per year that exceeded $20,000 in total value, the IRS said .”

“Airtel Africa is spinning off its mobile money arm in a strategy that the service’s CEO, Vimal Kumar, says seeks “to unleash the power of mobile money.” Africa is the world leader in mobile money in many respects, and the growth of mobile money in the continent has led telecom firms to discuss further unlocking their value by spinning off the services to become standalone financial entities.”

“Tencent Holdings Ltd. ’s WeChat super app managed remarkable growth in services from e-commerce to payments and search over the past year, defying a government crackdown that sought to tear down barriers within China’s internet arena. Daily active users of WeChat mini-programs — lite apps within the main social media and messaging platform — grew about 12.5% to 450 million in 2021, Tencent executives said during the WeChat annual event Thursday. The app’s native search function — a feature once touted as Tencent’s answer to Baidu Inc. ’s dominance — added 200 million monthly users over the past year, they added.”

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau slammed the nation’s credit reporting bureaus over their handling of complaints in a report that could serve as a precursor to stricter oversight of the industry. The CFPB said that Equifax, Experian and TransUnion often fail to help consumers resolve issues or to give them adequate responses. The consumer agency received more than 700,000 complaints about Equifax, Experian and TransUnion between January 2020 and September 2021, accounting for more than half of all the consumer complaints submitted to the CFPB during that period, according to the report.”

“Tencent -owned WeChat, China’s largest messaging app and one of the country’s biggest payment services, will begin supporting the country’s sovereign digital currency. China has been working on the digital yuan since 2014 and is yet to roll it out nationwide. But the move by WeChat, which has over 1 billion users, to support the digital currency could provide it with a huge boost if people begin to pay with it.”

“LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today released the 2021 edition of the LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Study: Financial Services & Lending, the 5th edition of the report. The study examines fraud trends for the United States and Canadian financial services and lending sectors and key pain points related to adding new payment mechanisms, transacting through online and mobile channels and international expansion.”

“With the proliferation of immediate payments, one area resistant to change has been bill pay. But U.S. Bank is leading the industry, bringing the power of Real-Time Payments to the U.S. Bank consumer bill pay experience for the first time. U.S. Bank successfully completed a test of consumer bill payments using Request for Payment (RfP), an RTP® solution that is transforming how billers send and customers pay their bills. U.S. Bank will be one of the first financial institutions to bring this capability to the marketplace when it makes the service available to its millions of consumer bank customers in the first quarter of 2022.”

“Computer Services, Inc. (CSI) (OTCQX: CSVI), a provider of end-to-end fintech and regtech solutions , has partnered with NYDIG, a leading bitcoin company, to offer a full suite of turnkey Bitcoin services to community financial institutions. Powered by NYDIG, the new offering allows banking customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin directly within CSI’s digital banking platform, creating a safe and efficient way for users to manage their digital transactions.”

“Democratic and Republican lawmakers have held early discussions about another round of coronavirus stimulus spending as they seek to blunt the fast-spreading omicron variant and its threats to public health and economic recovery.  The efforts have focused primarily on authorizing billions of dollars to help an array of businesses — including restaurants, performance venues, gyms and even minor league sports teams — that face another potential blow to their already-battered balance sheets as a result of the evolving pandemic.”

“The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) will now is now expecting to roll out its new payment system next month after successful trials that involved banks and mobile operators.Known as Tanzania Instant Payment System (Tips), the interoperable system allows transfer of payments between different participating digital financial service providers, both banks and non-banks, in real time.”

“While cybercrime gets a lot of attention from law enforcement and the media these days, I’ve been documenting a less high-tech threat emerging in recent months: a surge in stolen checks . Criminals are increasingly targeting U.S. Postal Service and personal mailboxes to pilfer filled-out checks and sell them over the internet using social media platforms. The buyers then alter the payee and amount listed on the checks to rob victims’ bank accounts of thousands of dollars. While the banks themselves typically bear the financial burden and reimburse targeted accounts, criminals can use the checks to steal victims’ identities, which can have severe consequences .”

“Cryptocurrency-linked crime surged to a record high last year in terms of value, with illegal addresses receiving $14 billion in digital currencies, up 79% from $7.8 billion in 2020, according to a blog from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis released on Thursday. As of early 2022, Chainalysis said illicit addresses already hold over $10 billion worth of cryptocurrencies, with the majority of this held by wallets associated with crypto theft. Illicit addresses are defined as wallets tied to criminal activities such as ransomware, Ponzi schemes and scams.”

“Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain:- As part of the Central Bank of Bahrain’s (CBB) vision to improve customer experience for safe and efficient settlement solutions, the CBB has today announced the successful completion of a test with Onyx by J.P. Morgan’s JPM Coin System.  This is a first of its kind test of JPM Coin System in the region. The test enabled Bank ABC to initiate real-time payments for Aluminium Bahrain (ALBA) to benefit ALBA’s counterparties in the United States, leveraging JPM Coin System, a permissioned system that serves as a payment rail and deposit account ledger, enabling participating entities to transfer US Dollars held on deposit with J.P. Morgan.”

“MoneyGram International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGI) today announced that the Company has completed a strategic minority investment in Coinme , a leading cryptocurrency cash exchange in the U.S. This venture, which gives the Company an approximate 4% ownership stake in Coinme, closes out Coinme’s Series A financing round and provides MoneyGram with a direct ownership position in one of the first and fastest growing cryptocurrency companies in the world.”

“Finexio, the fast-growing Accounts Payable (AP) Payments-as-a-Service company, today announced the completion of its double over-subscribed $10 million funding in partnership with new investor Mendon Venture Partners that provided incremental growth capital to meet demand for digital AP business-to-business (B2B) payments services.”

“DailyPay, featured in TIME’s “Best Inventions of 2021,” today announced their one-of-a-kind digital wallet solution. DailyPay’s digital wallet solution is designed for everyday working Americans, many of whom are facing unprecedented financial challenges with the resurgence of the pandemic. The DailyPay wallet solution is the only digital wallet that automatically fills itself every day a user works, reflecting their pay balance in real-time. As long as the user works for a company partnering with DailyPay, their usable DailyPay Balance™ is always growing — effectively eliminating the traditional payday.”

“Petal, a credit-card startup, has raised $140 million in a funding round led by Tarsadia Investments. The funding round values the New York-based company at $800 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Valar Ventures, CUNA Mutual, Encore Bank, Volery Capital Partners, Gopher Asset Management, RiverPark Ventures, Afore Capital and Gaingels are among other participating investors, the company said.”

“P27, the cross-border payments platform being developed by a group of Nordic banks, is to become the new national clearing house for Denmark, replacing the current infrastructure run by Finance Denmark. Backed by Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, OP Financial Group, SEB and Swedbank, P27’s lofty ambition is to create one common state of the art payment platform in the Nordic countries.”

“Visa and Mastercard are courting fintechs to help them reach more consumers in Latin America, where a substantial unbanked population has otherwise turned to nonbanks for financial services. Because tech companies have succeeded in reaching a market that banks have underserved, technology partnerships have become vital to the U.S. card networks’ efforts to expand across borders.”

“Brazil, notorious for its bureaucracy and complexities, has created one of the most efficient payments systems in Latin America, with blow-out numbers proving its success. Pix, rolled out by the Banco Central do Brasil in Nov. 2020, was built for efficiency and financial inclusion. It now has 107.5 million registered accounts, more than half of the country’s population. One year after implementation, more than half a trillion Brazilian reais were transacted through the low-cost payments system last month. According to central bank data, Pix payments volume is already equivalent to 80% of debit and credit card transactions.”

“Telkom, a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, announced that Telkom Kenya has launched an app for its mobile money product, T-Kash. A press release from the operator of more than 38 countries across the African continent said that T-Kash App is an easy-to-use application that will enable its customers to access a wider service offering on its digital financial services platform. The T-Kash App, which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store, the Huawei App Store as well as the Apple Store, is a strategic addition through which Telkom customers will access T-Kash.”

“The agreement with Finicity provides FTA’s customers access to consumer-permissioned account data for secure account validation and ownership when opening new accounts. This allows consumers to connect their primary account to deposit funds into a new investment account. It signals the end of tedious validation methods like micro-deposits, which can take days to clear, and can minimize risk by verifying the ownership of an existing account.”

“The American Bankers Association told the Federal Reserve on Monday that it supports a plan to migrate to a new message format, ISO 20022, on a single day but said it has “serious concern” regarding the lack of detail about the plan. ABA requested that the Fed provide a detailed implementation plan as soon as possible to allow banks to develop their own internal teams and allocate resources. Specifically, the association asked for a “technology roadmap” that establishes a series of key dates and milestones related to the system requirements and testing procedures.”

“China has released pilot versions of its digital yuan wallet application on mobile phone app stores as the country’s central bank steps up its push to develop its own digital currency. The “e-CNY (Pilot Version)” app, developed by the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) digital currency research institute, was available for download on Chinese Android and Apple app stores on Tuesday in Shanghai.”

“Stablecoin issuer Tether froze over $1 million worth of USDT last week, according to on-chain data. The amount is significant, given it belongs to a single blockchain address. Tether called the “AddedBlacklist” function on December 30 to block this address within this transaction. This address now won’t be able to move the frozen funds. When Tether blacklists an address , it freezes the USDT balance of it, as The Block has reported previously.”

“Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, today announced the launch of mobile Android point of sale (POS) terminals in the EU, UK, and the United States. The devices represent a fundamental change in the role of the payment terminal, functioning as an all-in-one solution, eliminating the need for separate cash registers, barcode scanners, and customer facing displays. Additionally, the terminals come with an app management system, allowing merchants to upload and manage the apps they use every day, for inventory management, loyalty programs, returns and more.”

“Nuvei Corporation (“Nuvei” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: NVEI) (TSX: NVEI) the global payment technology partner of thriving brands, has announced today its capability enhancement which enables international merchants to accept local payment methods in 10 Latin American countries in addition to international card schemes and alternative payment methods (APMs). The Company’s newly introduced solution will support local card schemes and alternative payment options, streamlining the setup needed to support local payment methods, while boosting acceptance rates. This includes settlement in local currency, settlement in non-Latin American currencies, regional settlement, or a combination of all three.”

“Today, Nacha released the following statement by President and CEO Jane Larimer on the December 2021 update to the Federal Reserve Payments Study: ‘The latest update to the Federal Reserve Payments Study highlights the importance of the fast and modern ACH Network to our nation’s payment system. In 2020, many businesses and individuals turned to the ACH Network to send and receive payments because of pandemic-related disruptions. Americans received payments seamlessly through the ACH Network even as volumes substantially grew. In 2020, there were a record 26.8 billion payments on the ACH Network, an 8.2% increase compared to 2019.'”

“Payment solutions provider Pine Labs Pvt Ltd, which is headed for a US listing, said on Tuesday it has raised an additional $20 million (around ₹150 crore) in new investment from the State Bank of India (SBI). Pine Labs said it will invest the new funds in scaling Plural, its newly launched brand of online payment products, and aims to become an omnichannel partner of choice for merchants.”

“The Competition Commission of India is investigating whether Apple’s requirement that developers use its own in-app payment system is illegally harmful to competition. The CCI probe is expected to be complete within the next 60 days and is based on a concern that Apple’s payment rules deprive developers of their choice of a payment processing system. The CCI also referenced the commission of up to 30% for app purchases and in-app payments as a potential hindrance to revenue for developers.”

“The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has introduced a framework to grant licences for setting up wholly digital banks that will provide all the banking services, from account opening to deposit and lending, through digital means and the customers will not need to visit any branch physically… The framework for digital banks is the latest in a series of recent initiatives by the SBP towards the digitalisation of banking and payment solutions in the country.”

“The payment subsidiary of vacation rental company Airbnb Inc. has agreed to settle allegations it violated U.S. sanctions against Cuba, the Treasury Department said Monday. Airbnb Payments Inc. allegedly processed payments associated with guests traveling to Cuba for reasons outside of categories authorized by the U.S. government and failed to keep certain required records for Cuba-related transactions, according to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which implements and enforces U.S. sanctions. Airbnb Payments has agreed to remit more than $91,000 as part of the settlement.”

“As US shoppers count the cost of their last-minute holiday purchases, there is one thing they have to worry about a little less in 2022: overdraft fees. Consumer advocates said last year saw the most significant rollbacks and adjustments to how banks charge customers when their debit accounts fall below zero. Those fees “may be the single most unpopular thing banks do to their customers”, said Jesse Van Tol, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a consumer advocacy group. “I think you’re just really seeing a tipping point this year.””

“Now questions are swirling around dozens of EMIs regulators licensed as part of a move to boost London’s reputation as a fintech center and promote banking competition. Hundreds of regulatory, legal and corporate filings reviewed by Bloomberg sketch an unsettling picture of this new corner of the City. And they point to oversight weaknesses at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority. Among the companies approved by the FCA, Bloomberg’s review found, are ones with executives or shareholders tied to Baltic money-laundering scandals, alleged financial wrongdoing in Russia and Kyrgyzstan, health-care fraud in the U.S. and suspected wrongdoing in Luxembourg and Australia. Dozens of firms are controlled by investors in jurisdictions far beyond the U.K., including the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. Some openly boast of doing business with high-risk customers.”

“The Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico) plans to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by 2024, the Mexican government confirmed in a tweet on Wednesday evening. According to the tweet, which was written in Spanish, Banxico “will have a digital currency of its own in circulation” by 2024 as it considers of “utmost importance these new technologies and state-of-the-art payment infrastructure as options of great value to advance financial inclusion in the country.””

“The Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) has successfully completed its f central bank digital currency (CBDC), targeting a national rollout in the first quarter of 2022. After proceeding with initial CBDC prototype testing in March 2021, Jamaica’s central bank finished an eight-month-long pilot last Friday, the Jamaica Information Service reported . As part of the pilot, the BoJ minted 230 million Jamaican dollars (JMD) ($1.5 million) worth of the CBDC for issuance to deposit-taking institutions and authorized payment service providers on Aug. 9, 2021.”

“InComm Payments , a leading payments technology company, today announced that it has partnered with Connect America , North America’s largest provider of personal emergency response services (PERS) and a recognized innovator in connective health solutions, to incorporate PERS, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and medication management into InComm Healthcare’s multi-wallet benefit card. The unique multi-wallet benefit card allows health plans to deliver multiple supplemental benefit and wellness incentive programs to their members via one card.”

“Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is aiming for “deep compatibility” with blockchain technology, according to an internal post on Tuesday from a top executive. In the note to employees, which was obtained by The New York Times, Andrew Bosworth, who will become Meta’s chief technology officer next year, laid out a vision for the social network to adopt and work with various blockchain or cryptocurrency technologies that have collectively become known as web3.”

“Mobile-first credit card company OneCard has scooped up $75 million in a new round led by existing investor QED Fund. The Pune-based company had already raised $35 million in two tranches in its Series B round led by Sequoia and QED Fund in 2021.”

“Rather than compete directly with Zelle and other peer-to-peer payment networks, the recently launched CHUCK network plans to position itself as a P2P network that eases money transfers for users, officials say. One such feature in the works is the ability for users to create a directory of destinations to allow faster transactions when money is sent to specific individuals. For example, if John Smith typically sends money to Jane Doe’s crypto wallet, that information can be stored and automatically invoked to send future payments to Jane Doe, according to Jason Henrichs, chief executive of Alloy Labs Alliance, a consortium of community and mid-size banks.”

“The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday released a report on “Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2020-21″. “This Report presents the performance of the banking sector, including co-operative banks, and non- banking financial institutions during 2020-21 and 2021-22 so far,” said RBI in a statement.”

“The newly launched “BI-Fast” system will allow real-time, secure money transfers of up to 250 million rupiah, at a maximum cost of 2,500 rupiah (17 U.S. cents) per transaction for customers, BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said. This compares with the cost of the current interbank money transfer for customers using the national payment gateway of 6,500 rupiah per transaction.”

“A brawl broke out on the floor of Ghana’s parliament late on Monday as lawmakers debated a proposed tax on electronic transactions that has divided the house for weeks. The 1.75% e-levy, which would include taxes on mobile money payments, has been fiercely challenged by the opposition since it was first proposed last month and held up the passing of the national budget.”

“The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has expressed support for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) inquiry into technology companies’ payments practices. In a Dec. 20 letter to leadership at the CFPB, CUNA strongly encourages the bureau to examine and regulate those entities moving forward. Specifically, CUNA voiced concerns about the potential of technology companies and other non-banks to purposely construct products and services to skirt consumer protection laws.”

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s review of payment platforms has been focused on Silicon Valley technology giants. But the effort is also now highlighting fraud concerns about a bank-owned network: Zelle. In October, the CFPB announced an inquiry into Big Tech payment systems, ordering six of the largest tech firms to provide information about the business. The agency also sought public comment on payment models. But most of the roughly 70 letters received by Friday focused on Zelle, the peer-to-peer network owned by seven of the largest banks that competes with nonbank providers such as Venmo.”

“Santander UK is trying to recover about $175 million, or about 130 million pounds, that it accidentally paid tens of thousands of people on Christmas Day. About 75,000 people received the mistaken payments, including many customers of rival banks. Santander is seeking help from the other banks to recoup the money, the bank said in a statement. The mistaken deposits could look like normal payments to recipients because they were duplicates of regular and one-off payments that about 2,000 of the bank’s commercial and corporate customers had already paid to people including their suppliers and employees.”

“The idea of digital driver’s licenses has begun gaining more traction in the U.S. as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) prepares to begin its rollout of Apple’s Digital IDs at key airports early next year. Similar to the way that Apple drove the adoption of mobile payments through Apple Pay, it appears that the introduction of support for Digital IDs in iOS 15 has more government agencies sitting up and taking notice of the technology.”

“More than nine in 10 consumers in Nigeria (91%) and six in 10 consumers in Indonesia (60%) would be likely to use a central bank digital currency (CBDC) compared with less than 24% in the US and 14% in Germany, according to a report by Giesecke+Devrient and the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF).”

“Paysend , the card-to-card pioneer and international payments platform, today announces a technology partnership with Tencent Financial Technology, the fintech arm of world-leading internet and technology company Tencent, that will enable people receive money through Weixin, the PRC version of WeChat targeting users in mainland China. Under the partnership, Paysend will enable users to send money across borders through licensed banks in China, with the funds reaching bank accounts linked to the Weixin app.”

“MoneyGram International, Inc. , a global leader in the evolution of digital P2P payments, today announced a milestone in the digitization of its global receive network with a new partnership with Paytm Payments Bank , India’s leading payments bank and a driver of financial inclusion in the country. Through this partnership, MoneyGram customers around the globe can send money in near real-time directly to the millions of fully KYC compliant Paytm Wallets in India.”

“The National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs determined that Chime Financial, Inc.’s advertising for its “SpotMe” program disclosed the material information necessary to ensure that claims about its program are substantiated and that Chime’s “no overdraft fees” claims are supported. Further, NAD found that the Chime homepage adequately qualifies its “no fees” claim so that consumers understand that out-of-network ATM fees are not among the hidden fees it eliminates. However, NAD recommended that Chime qualify claims on its “No Hidden Fees” webpage and television advertising to make clear that the eliminated fees do not include out-of-network ATM fees.”

“Working with Clearstream, Northern Trust, SETL and others, SWIFT plans experiments in Q1 2022 to explore how it can support interoperability in the development of the tokenised asset market. Relative to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, the current market capitalisation of tokenised assets is small but momentum for these digital assets is expected to accelerate rapidly in the coming years. By some estimates, volumes could reach some 24 trillion USD by 2027 .”