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Western Union, the global payment services company, announced Wednesday (Dec. 7) it is enhancing its relationship with Viber, the mobile messaging app that counts 745 million unique users around the globe. In a press release , Western Union said it is enhancing its existing relationship with Viber by enabling Viber users in the U.K. to send money domestically and internationally to more than 200 countries and territories via the Viber app.
Tokenization as a global standard for securing transactions in a digital world gets turbocharged today. In a mutual commitment to accelerating the adoption of an open digital wallet, global card networks Mastercard and Visa announce their agreement to allow each network to request tokenized credentials from the other when consumers are transacting across any digital medium — in app, online and in store.
It’s not easy being big. Or being big and regulated. Among other things, it makes running a footrace with FinTech startups — tough. Big and regulated banks — especially these days — are not set up to sprint. Decades of legacy infrastructure and a web of regulations make it tough to adopt a “move fast and break things” mantra — even if the regulators would allow it.
Blockchain has officially entered the grocery aisles. Walmart has announced that it is now testing new blockchain technology to track and trace produce in U.S. stores and pork in China. PYMNTS covered the testing and lead-up to the kickoff back in November. Now, the technology and use of it are even closer. It’s a pilot program, where sliced apples and cut broccoli will be used to test the blockchain database technology for four months starting in the first quarter of 2017.
In the climb from contributor to leader, the rules quietly change. But if you’re aiming for the summit, the air gets thinner, and what got you here won’t be enough to get you to the top. 🗻 What made you successful early in your finance career—technical accuracy, sharp analysis, flawless execution—won’t be what carries you to the next level. The higher you go, the more your effectiveness depends on how you connect, adapt, and communicate.
Visa announced today that it will acquire eCommerce payment authentication leader CardinalCommerce. The move is expected to enable Visa’s global clients and partners to accelerate, scale and secure digital commerce as payments expands to include billions upon billions of connected endpoints. Mark Nelsen, senior vice president of risk and authentication products at Visa, said that the “strategic acquisition combines Visa’s industry expertise and Cardinal’s critical role in payment authentication
Botnet attacks are not only growing in popularity among hackers, but they are also delivering a new level of sophistication and danger to businesses and consumers worldwide. In this week’s Hacker Tracker , PYMNTS caught up with security experts at digital security products provider Avast Software to gain insight into the rise of Crimeware-as-a-Service and why the industry should be taking notice of the growing threat of malicious botnets, like Avalanche and Mirai.
The American Express that exists today would look pretty foreign to its first employees of 166 years ago — since, to state the obvious, a lot has changed over that period of time. Long before American Express was a credit card issuer and a closed loop payments network, it was in the business of moving mail (and other things) quickly from one coast to the other.
The American Express that exists today would look pretty foreign to its first employees of 166 years ago — since, to state the obvious, a lot has changed over that period of time. Long before American Express was a credit card issuer and a closed loop payments network, it was in the business of moving mail (and other things) quickly from one coast to the other.
It’s a fact. While they enjoy many FinTech innovations, most millennials don’t have a snowball’s chance of earning more than their parents — ever. How big the income gap between those 70 million people and their parents depends on a few things, including how well-heeled their parents are. Not surprisingly, hardest hit are the kids born to middle and lower middle-income families — so, roughly 70 percent of the U.S. population.
The ancient Minoans were a happy and productive society, which, among other things, was an early pioneer of cross-border commerce. The civilization that emerged and flourished on the island of Crete from 2000 BC to roughly 1500 BC was defined by artisans, farmers and traders — and a surprising degree of entrepreneurship for a civilization obsessed with Greek gods and fearful of the mythical Minotaur.
PayPal’s made it pretty clear that enabling consumer choice means giving consumers the ability to use their preferred method of payment inside of their PayPal wallet anywhere they’d like to shop — in-store, online and in-app. Its deals earlier this year with Mastercard and Visa underscored its commitment to giving issuers new tools to drive a co-branded experience inside of the payment app.
The Internet of Things may be a burgeoning industry, but according to a new survey by IAB, nearly two-thirds of American consumers, or 62 percent, already own at least one IoT device. What’s more, 65 percent of those surveyed who own IoT devices said they are willing to receive ads on their IoT screens. In a press release highlighting the survey results, IAB said 62 percent of survey respondents said they already see ads on IoT -connected gadgets.
The most overlooked, yet most critical, element of transformation is preparing people for change. Automation and AI aren't just technical upgrades, they’re cultural shifts which can challenge identities. That’s why change management isn’t a side project—it’s the foundation. In finance, where precision and process rule, navigating change can feel especially disruptive.
Millennials just aren’t buying homes — they are the first generation of Americans since World War II who will meaningfully move away from that vision of the American Dream. Millennial homeownership rates — for those 75.4 million or so young adults between the ages of 19 and 35 — was far below historical averages and about a fifth of home ownership rate in the same age group at the turn of the 21st century.
IBM is getting into the blockchain game, announcing Friday (Dec. 9) it launched a blockchain ecosystem aimed at accelerating the creation of blockchain networks. In a press release , IBM touted blockchain, saying it has the potential to transform the way all sorts of industries conduct business transactions. In order for it to take off, IBM contends there needs to be a complete ecosystem of industrial players all working together.
To the average consumer, payments looks pretty simple and straightforward — especially when paying online. Enter a card number, hit buy and a millisecond later, the countdown to getting the goods begins. For those that use a mobile wallet, it’s even simpler. And while building all that simplicity for consumers is a good thing, actually making it simple — and secure — is basically what makes the digital commerce world go round.
The price of bitcoin has continued its December climb this week. Bitcoin is at its highest value since early Feb. 2014. After a drop into the mid-760s on Sunday (Dec. 11), bitcoin rose to a weekly peak of $788.49 on Tuesday afternoon. The remainder of the week was spent lolling about in the mid to upper 770s. The current value of bitcoin at the time of writing was $777.14. —.
Finance used to be the function that counted, now it's the one that’s counted on. 📊 For accounting firms, controllers, and finance leaders, expectations are rising faster than headcount. Businesses want agile forecasts, granular analysis, seamless reporting, and smart automation—often without added resources while demanding uncompromised accuracy and compliance.
Just as businesses need to keep pace with the change of technology, the technology providers that help businesses remain successful need to stay ahead of the curve themselves. Corporations are scaling globally, integrating complex supply chains, working with small suppliers, ensuring international compliance and gaining access to more data than ever before.
There are pivots and then there are wholesale about-faces. Circle’s choice to halt bitcoin trading in favor of doubling down on more traditional mobile pay certainly counts as a bit more of the latter than the former. Circle launched three years ago mostly as a consumer finance firm built on a bitcoin backbone. Customers were able and encouraged to buy and sell bitcoin on the platform — and as a blockchain-based firm, Circle was able to snap up around $70M in investor funds.
Chinese B2B eCommerce platform DHgate.com is upgrading its payments infrastructure to promote faster payments for businesses transacting on the site. Reports Friday (Dec. 2) said DHgate.com revealed plans to upgrade its platform payment infrastructure to ensure that every transaction will take six seconds or less. According to reports, through optimizing existing infrastructure and acquiring additional servers across the globe, the site was able to accelerate page loading times and support faste
Retailers, already sweating bullets over the “ Amazon Effect ” on their business, now have one more reason to keep sweating. Amazon Go, Amazon’s new grocery store format in Seattle, opened last week. Right now, its only customers are Amazon employees, who are putting it through its paces, but that will change in early 2017, a spokesperson said. Few details have emerged as to how Amazon Go powers the experience that shoppers will find once they get inside the store, but the combination of the Ama
Great leadership development is the key to sustainable business growth. Are you ready to design an effective program? HR can use Paycor’s framework to: Set achievable goals. Align employee and company needs. Support different learning styles. Empower the next generation of leaders. Invest in your company’s future with a strong leadership development program.
The automotive industry just had a head-on collision — with technology. That’s what Marques McCammon , GM for connected vehicle solutions at Wind River , thinks anyway. He explained that the automotive industry is the one place where the concepts of IoT can be made very real to the mass market — where they will be able to see it, understand it and really feel its impact.
American fugitive Joshua Aaron, who is a suspect in the massive JPMorgan hack that took place back in 2014, arrived back in the U.S. from Russia this week. Aaron’s return to the U.S. and subsequent arrest comes after seven months of negotiations between U.S. authorities and a migrant detention center near Moscow, people close to the matter told Bloomberg.
At a time when the IRS is trying to find out the identities behind bitcoin users, the Pennsylvania Allegheny County District Attorney’s office revealed it had to use bitcoin to pay a ransom to get its data back. According to a report by Forbes , the ransom was only $1,400, but the fact that a government agency paid a ransom and used bitcoin is something not seen before.
Scotland’s economy has excelled in industrial industries such as shipbuilding, steel and petroleum, but the country is turning its attention to developing a rising digital tech scene. In this week’s installment of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , one of the country’s thriving tech clusters, Glasgow, takes center stage. Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about Glasgow and its tech scene: Glasgow it the largest city in Scotland and the third largest in the U.K., with an e
Documents are the backbone of enterprise operations, but they are also a common source of inefficiency. From buried insights to manual handoffs, document-based workflows can quietly stall decision-making and drain resources. For large, complex organizations, legacy systems and siloed processes create friction that AI is uniquely positioned to resolve.
Venture capital has hit a plateau, according to some analysts. “After $100M+ checks flowed freely to VC-backed companies through much of 2015, the mega-round trend has settled into a lower range through 2016,” concluded KPMG and CB Insights in their Q3 2016 venture capital report. Data suggests the trend is global: North America VC investments for the quarter were fairly flat compared to Q2, and while Europe saw an increase in the number of deals for VC funding, there was a decline i
A chatbot is on the horizon for regular users of the Starbucks mobile app. Called My Starbucks Barista, the new technology’s announcement came out during an event for investors where current and future CEOs of the firm, Howard Schultz and Kevin Johnson, outlined the company’s five-year growth plan. During the investor event, Starbucks premiered a demo video of the technology, with a customer speaking into the phone to interact with a chatbot that asked contextual follow-up questions.
Between the Instagram selfies, Twitter hashtags and Facebook posts, millennials seem to overshare. Their life is an open book on social media, and even the tiniest of details are never too much to provide. But when it comes time to hand over information to authenticate themselves to conduct a financial transaction, that door slams shut. “The more information that’s asked of them, the less likely it is that [millennials] will finish the application,” said Johnny Ayers, cofounder of Socure.
Vantiv and iModerate know that the word wallet has come to mean much more than just the accessory thrown in a purse or back pocket. Today, the word can also describe a mobile app that stores digital versions of a person’s payment cards, loyalty cards, gift cards and even coupons — enabling payment to take place with just a tap or scan. While mobile wallets can be a quick and convenient option to help consumers expedite checkout, keep their information secure, and streamline retailer discounts an
Speaker: Claire Grosjean, Global Finance & Operations Executive
Finance teams are drowning in data—but is it actually helping them spend smarter? Without the right approach, excess spending, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities continue to drain profitability. While analytics offers powerful insights, financial intelligence requires more than just numbers—it takes the right blend of automation, strategy, and human expertise.
[link]. Baseball is always a fecund place to find analogies about life. It’s also a great place to find analogies about life that apply to payments. Here’s one: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” That one’s been attributed, of course, to Yogi Berra, as well as Hall of Famer Casey Stengel. And yet, we do all get into the predictions game, in every walk of life, across industries and personal endeavors, serving as roadmaps for the upcoming 12 months and beyond.
“Build a better mousetrap,” the expression goes, “and the world will beat a path to your door.”. Everyone knows the quote, including Chase Pay and LevelUp, and while not everyone knows it is a paraphrase of a longer quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson — “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door,” — they know what it means.
KFC is the latest company to report a hack , with the bad guys breaching its Colonel’s Club loyalty program. According to a report by Forbes , which cited U.K.’s ITV, the hackers were able to steal personally identifiable information of the members of the loyalty program. The report noted that KFC is hoping to limit the impact of the breach because it acted quickly to remedy the situation.
New insight into eCommerce growth in the third quarter of 2016 has found that publicly traded online retailers outperformed even the overall well-performing eCommerce market — with gains largely due to Amazon. The Department of Commerce released data in November that showed that eCommerce in the U.S. continued to see growth in the third quarter of 2016.
Distributed finance teams are rewriting how the back-office runs, and attackers are taking notes. Disconnected workflows, process blind spots, and rising cyber threats are more than just growing pains—they’re liabilities. The challenge isn’t just going remote. It’s building resilient systems that protect accuracy, control, and speed across every transaction and touchpoint.
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