“J. Christopher Giancarlo, who stepped down as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last year, said he was creating the nonprofit Digital Dollar Foundation to study converting the dollar into a fully electronic currency based on blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin. The U.S. risks losing the advantages it enjoys from having the dominant global currency if it falls behind rivals like China, which is working on creating a digital yuan, Mr. Giancarlo wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal in October.”

“Cricket is a religion in India, and digital payments major PhonePe knows it better than anyone. The secret sauce for the success of the Walmart-backed company, which has lately been breathing down rival Paytm’s neck, is cricket sponsorships. PhonePe first invested its marketing spends into cricket in mid-2018 with the Asia Cup. After seeing a positive response, it upped cricket-related advertisements, the Flipkart-owned brand told Quartz.”

“PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL ) today announced that it processed a record $10.3 billion in donations to charities around the world in 2019, and more than $1 billion in the month of December alone, as mobile and other digital channels continue to change how donors engage with nonprofit organizations. Twenty-one percent of all donations processed by PayPal in 2019 were made through mobile devices.”

“Amazon is partnering with India’s second largest retail chain in an effort to further its reach into the country. The online retail giant said this week it will become the official online sales channel for India’s Future Retail. While Future Retail has more than 1,500 physical stores around India, this will be its first large-scale online sales venture.  The two have entered into a long-term business agreement which will make Amazon India the authorized online sales channel for Future Retail stores. The focus will be on groceries and general merchandise, and fashion and footwear.”

“What this new funding means it that Tradeshift is effectively delaying its IPO to get its “house in order” in the context of a new economic environment that has become skeptical toward tech IPOs in the wake of the WeWork debacle, which saw public investors cool toward new tech company listings. Although the company isn’t saying this, perhaps in this instance, its motto should be temporarily changed from “shift happens” to the more apt “shit happens.””

“Raisin, a Berlin-based wealth management platform, agreed to buy Choice Financial Solutions, a software firm that will allow American banks and credit unions to offer a broader range of savings products directly to their customers or through the Raisin platform.  Choice FS, which originally launched in 2010, will allow banks to offer customized short and long-term savings products that offer for example, cash distributions at set periods over time or ad hoc withdrawal availability.”

“French startup Lydia is raising a $45 million Series B round (€40 million). Tencent is leading the round with existing investors CNP Assurances, XAnge and New Alpha also participating. If you live in France, chances are you already know Lydia quite well. The company has become a ubiquitous mobile payment app, especially for people under 30 years old. Think about it as a sort of Square Cash or Venmo, but for France.”

“As a course correction, Finance Canada must seek legislative amendments to the Canadian Payments Act authorizing paytech companies as eligible members of Payments Canada and enshrining competition as a stated public policy objective for the payments system. Furthermore, the Minister of Finance should issue a directive to Payments Canada requiring the completion of the proposed real-time payments system no later than the fourth quarter of 2021. Canadians have waited far too long to reap the benefits of an efficient and competitive payments system and cannot afford to wait any longer.”

“IDology , a GBG company, today announced that its ExpectID solution will incorporate additional countries from North America, South America and Europe. By internationalizing the leading identity verification platform, multi-national organizations will be able to verify and authenticate more customers safely, in real time and without friction.  ExpectID uses an innovative, multi-layered process to access thousands of data sources containing billions of public records to instantly verify an identity, while also providing predictive, intelligent information around that identity. The integration of international data enables companies to leverage one vendor with one service gateway to onboard and authenticate customers from multiple countries and with easier reporting to more effectively stay on top of fraud trends.”

“The ‘ICICI Bank API Banking portal’, which consists of 250 APIs, enables developers of prospective partner companies across the globe to seamlessly sign up on it, create an application, select the application, test it out and get the sample code. With this, businesses, fintechs, corporates and e-commerce start-ups can easily partner with the Bank and co- create innovative customer solutions in a frictionless manner, all from the convenience of a single portal. The usage of ‘ICICI Bank API Banking Portal’ simplifies the process of digital collaboration for a partner company with the Bank and reduces the time taken to develop a business solution to a few days. This significantly raises productivity for partner companies. Typically, an API integration would take a few months.”

Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), officially imposed the QR code standardization called QRIS (Indonesian Standard QR Code) on January 1. This means that all mobile payment providers must replace their QR code with QRIS for easier transactions.

“Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp reported $119.1 billion in merchant volume versus $107.8 billion in 2018’s fourth quarter. Transactions totaled 1.69 billion, up 13.8% from 1.49 billion a year earlier. That generated $409 million in non-interest income, a 5.1% increase. The revenue growth was “driven by higher sales volumes and merchant fees,” U.S. Bancorp said in its earnings report….BofA reported Wednesday that its customers sent and received 95 million payments via Zelle in the fourth quarter, up 86% from 51.1 million in year-earlier period. Payment value totaled $23.8 billion, up 76%. BofA says it has 9.7 million active Zelle users.”

“Consumers downloaded a record 204 billion apps in 2019, up 6% from 2018 and up 45% since 2016, and spent $120 billion on apps, subscriptions and other in-app spending in the past year. The average mobile user, meanwhile, is spending 3.7 hours per day using apps. This data and more comes from App Annie’s annual report, “State of Mobile,” which highlights the biggest app trends for the past year, and sets forecasts for the years ahead.”

“Very Good Security (VGS), a leader in modern data security and custodianship, announced today that it has received a strategic investment from Visa Inc. to expand access to VGS’ infrastructure-as-a-service for financial technology companies (fintechs) and large enterprises. Visa joins other notable investors, including Goldman Sachs, Andreessen Horowitz, Vertex Ventures US, and Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal), in advancing VGS’ mission to provide a better approach to data security, privacy and compliance.”

“Caltrain Mobile will enhance the overall customer experience for Caltrain riders by making it unnecessary to visit ticketing machines before boarding at stations. The app offers One-Way, Day Pass and Zone Upgrade digital tickets for adults and passengers who qualify for discounted fare.”

“Fintech is a crowded space. But a new subgenre is emerging to attract the world’s 1.8bn Muslims with a Shariah-compliant alternative. Young Muslims want in on Europe’s fintech scene. Their pitch is that Muslims, who make up 20% of the world’s population, have been underserved not only by traditional banks, but also by modern fintechs. Shariah law forbids Muslims from earning or paying interest, engaging in “unequal transactions” or supporting “unethical” investments. Most European financial institutions therefore do not cater for halal (permissible) trading, savings, insurance or mortgages, and brick-and-mortar Islamic banks like UK-based Al Rayan have been slow to catch up.”

“Britain’s 24 million adult gamblers will not be able to use credit cards to gamble under a new rule designed to prevent consumers from building up too much debt. The Gambling Commission said on Tuesday the ban, which comes into effect on April 14 2020, will apply to all online and offline gambling products apart from ‘non-remote lotteries’ – lotteries where payment is made face-to-face.”

“Even though contactless credit and debit card transactions made by tapping a card against a point-of-sale device rely on the same standard as EMV dipped transactions, consumers have different impressions of the security benefits, a newly released study says. Indeed, 81% of the 1,350 consumers surveyed for the “Emerging Trends at the Point of Sale” report released Monday by FreedomPay Inc. and Ingenico Group.  have an overall positive impression of contact EMV payments, compared to only 59% for contactless EMV payments. Arlington, Va.-based Hanover Research conducted the survey for the report. It also canvassed more than 350 merchants.”

“India has more than 560 million internet users, all generating data by the terabyte. Soon they’ll have an unprecedented amount of control over their digital financial footprints, with the ability to decide what to share, with whom, and for how long. India’s top banks are getting ready to roll out a system that gives consumers access to a wide swath of their financial data and allows them to share it instantly. Backed by the Reserve Bank of India, it’s an ambitious approach that combines privacy protection with credit reporting: if it works, it could unlock the credit market for millions of Indians while offering new levels of data security and consumer control.”

“Twitter is considering a feature that would allow users to tip one another – in Bitcoins though. The Information reports that the micro-blogging platform is working on implementing a new payment feature to let people send money to each other. It is not yet clear whether the Twitter tipping feature would integrate with Jack Dorsey’s other company, Square, which is a financial services, merchant services aggregator, and mobile payment company based in San Francisco.”

“Klarna, the leading global provider of buy now, pay later payment solutions for online and mobile shoppers, today announced it is enhancing its shopping service platform by launching in-store payments for US consumers. With the majority of retail transactions in the US still taking place in-store, and mobile in-store payments projected to reach $223 billion by 2023, Klarna is now partnering with leading US retail brands such as Good American and Planet Blue to offer customers a seamless, personalized and engaging shopping experience, no matter where, when or how they shop.”

“Nok Nok Labs — one of the driving forces behind the new FIDO (Fast Identity Online) standard aimed at strengthening the security of biometric systems on mobile devices, today has partnered with banking leader, BBVA. The agreement is part of BBVA’s strategy to improve the security and user experience of its mobile banking services through state-of-the-art biometric capabilities.”

“Currency exchange and remittance network technology company, Ripple, looking to expand its presence in Asia has partnered with Siam Commercial Bank to create a mobile application powered by blockchain to deliver fast, cheap and instant cross border payment. The application to be developed by Ripple apart from delivering cheap and fast cross border payment will also enable QR (quick response) code for Siam Bank customers to enjoy remittance services alongside micropayment services.”

““Tap to Phone makes it easy for sellers to use Android smartphones to accept payments without any additional hardware. It’s as simple as downloading an app. “This means millions more sellers everywhere will be able to accept contactless payments using current-generation mobile devices. Customers win too, as they’ll be able [to] make payments in seconds by simply tapping their contactless card, phone or watch to the seller’s Tap to Phone-enabled smartphone.” “While 40% of the national GDP in emerging markets is contributed by small and micro-sellers, fewer than 10% of these sellers accept digital payments,” the payments network adds.”

“Two co-founders of Google Pay in India are building a neo-banking platform in the country — and they have already secured backing from three top VC funds. Sujith Narayanan, a veteran payments executive who co-founded Google Pay in India (formerly known as Google Tez ), said on Monday that his startup, epiFi , has raised $13.2 million in its seed financial round led by Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital. The round valued epiFi at about $50 million.”

“The first of Hong Kong’s new generation of digital banks has announced its arrival with an introductory rate of 6% or higher for deposits. ZA Bank Ltd. , one of eight firms preparing to start digital-only banks in Hong Kong, has begun a trial run that pays a select group of depositors over 3 percentage points more than established banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc . Though many doubt the new banks will be able to maintain such rates, the offer is a warning of upcoming competition for the the city’s $410 billion local currency time-deposit business.”

“India ordered an investigation of Amazon.com Inc and Walmart’s Flipkart on Monday over alleged violations of competition law in the latest setback for U.S. e-commerce giants operating in the country.  The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said it was ordering a wider probe following a review of allegations that Amazon and Flipkart were promoting some “preferred sellers” and in turn hurting business for other, smaller sellers.”

“Mobile wallet adoption is on the rise and can generate nearly $190 billion in transaction value in the U.S. by 20211, but there is still a disconnect between digital payments and in-store point of sale,” said Roche. “We have seen incredible success stories in other markets like Asia, and the global share of mobile wallet market size is projected to reach almost $3 trillion by 20222. U.S. retailers have a huge chance for engagement and for driving greater footfall in their stores by leveraging omnichannel payments experiences and better acknowledging the digital shopper. I look forward to exploring this opportunity gap with NRF attendees.”

“Ingenico Group and Freedom Pay unveiled research this week that found that despite the fact that more than half of shoppers reported encountering a technical problem during a mobile checkout experience, about three-fourths still believed contactless payments were a good option for shopping or engaging in a loyalty program.  The study, conducted by Hanover Research, revealed that age is a huge factor in accepting contactless payments as 70% of Gen Z consumers and 74% of millennials reported satisfaction with using contactless.”

“Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass says the retailer’s partnership with Amazon is going well, despite Kohl’s reporting dismal holiday sales that cast doubt on the strategy. “I get this question, ‘Is Amazon working?’” Gass said Sunday at the National Retail Federation’s annual Big Show in New York, in an interview with CNBC’s Courtney Reagan . “Amazon is working. This returns program is working. We’re seeing the traffic. We’re getting new customers.””

“More than one in four Americans lack adequate access to credit. Nationally, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reports that 6.5 percent of households are unbanked and 18.7 percent are underbanked. How can this be remedied? One option that NPQ has covered would be to activate the US postal system to provide limited banking services, a practice that is common in other countries and was practiced in the US itself from 1911 to 1967. At the federal level, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has been a leading advocate.”

“Amazon’s warning, which began appearing on December 20, confused and angered many of Honey’s users, some of whom complained on its official social media channels. The browser extension has been compatible with Amazon since it was founded, and it is a significant part of Honey’s appeal. Amazon is one of the most popular retailers in the world and the place where most Americans begin when looking for a product online.”

“PayU is acquiring a controlling stake in fintech startup PaySense at a valuation of $185 million and plans to merge it with its credit business LazyPay as the nation’s largest payments processor aggressively expands its financial services offering. The Prosus-owned payments giant said on Friday that it will pump $200 million — $65 million of which is being immediately invested — into the new enterprise in the form of equity capital over the next two years. PaySense, which employs about 240 people, has served more than 5.5 million consumers to date, a top executive said.”

“Recent jurisprudence by the Court of Justice of the European Union also further crystalized the law around cookies, making it clear that consent must be actively signaled — meaning a digital service cannot infer consent to tracking by indirect actions (such as the pop-up being closed by the user without a response or ignored in favor of interacting with the service). Many websites use a so-called CMP to solicit consent to tracking cookies. But if it’s configured to contain pre-ticked boxes that opt users into sharing data by default — requiring an affirmative user action to opt out — any gathered “consent” also isn’t legal.”

“Holiday digital spending jumped 8% compared to the rest of 2019, reaching $723 billion worldwide, according to data from Salesforce . Mobile once again was the top channel, accounting for as much as 80% of digital traffic and 65% of digital orders on peak shopping days. Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) was also a big winner, particularly toward the end of the season. Retailers that offered this service saw 56% more active digital users (shoppers who used a site search, added a product to a cart, and started to check out or completed their transaction) during the final five days of the season. These retailers also collected 18% more digital revenue after reaching their shipping cutoff dates.”

“Crooks have stolen tens of millions of dollars and other valuable commodities from thousands of consumers via “SIM swapping,” a particularly invasive form of fraud that involves tricking a target’s mobile carrier into transferring someone’s wireless service to a device they control. But the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the entity responsible for overseeing wireless industry practices, has so far remained largely silent on the matter. Now, a cadre of lawmakers is demanding to know what, if anything, the agency might be doing to track and combat SIM swapping.”

A survey of more than 150,000 Chinese digital payment users has found that two-thirds have come across deceptive QR codes and 40.8% have had their codes surreptitiously forwarded to other people in the past year.

“Despite the decades-old rise of electronic payments at the expense of cash, the rate of decrease in ATM cash withdrawals has slowed down, and more consumers are avoiding fees by using their own financial institution’s ATMs, according to the Federal Reserve. The Fed’s latest triennial payments study released last month says ATM cash-withdrawal transactions declined at a compounded annualized rate of 0.9% from 2015 to 2018, down from the 3.4% annualized decrease in the Fed’s previous study period of 2012 to 2015.”

“I am a long-time Samsung Pay user and I was honestly shocked to see Samsung was selling my Samsung Pay data. Companies like Google are pretty open about the amount of data they track and sell and how they sell it. Samsung isn’t as open about the amount of data they track or sell. The reason Samsung added this “Do Not Sell” is because of the CCPA, or the “California Consumer Privacy Act.” According to Samsung’s privacy page about the CCPA , the act gives California residents three basic rights. These rights are access to your personal information, deletion of your personal information, and the ability to stop Samsung, or other companies, from selling your personal information.”

“The new fare options will be added once all subway stations and bus routes have been equipped with the new technology at the end of this year, the MTA says. The service is due to go live at 60 additional subway stations by the end of this month, bringing the total to close to 150. The full rollout to all 472 subway stations and all MTA bus services is scheduled for completion by the end of 2020.”