PYMNTS
AUGUST 17, 2016
Selfies or vacation photos are apparently a big business. Seriously. Pixlee , a San Francisco-based startup, allows retailers or brands to market directly to customers by using their own photos through curating them from social media or having the customer directly submit them for use, which the company says leads to a more authentic and engaging shopping experience for consumers.
Katz,Sapper&Miller
AUGUST 19, 2016
On Aug. 2, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released controversial proposed regulations under Section 2704 of the Internal Revenue Code. These proposed regulations are designed to eliminate minority/marketability discounts for family-owned entities for gift, estate and generation-skipping transfer tax purposes. These entities include operating businesses, as well as investment entities.
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
In its seventh year collaborating with Stand Up To Cancer , Mastercard announced that its cardholders helped to raise $4 million during the annual Dine Out campaign. Cardholders were invited to donate to the cause and give back by dining out and sharing their reason for fighting cancer. The campaign, which ran for a period of time this summer, saw Mastercard make a donation to Stand Up To Cancer each time a cardholder spent more than $10 for a qualifying meal using their Mastercard card.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 16, 2016
Millennials may know something that their older counterparts haven’t figured out yet: Cash is better than credit cards. That’s according to data from the Federal Reserve that shows that the number of people under the age of 35 in the U.S. that own a credit card has dipped to the lowest point since 1989, when the Federal Reserve started collecting data on credit card ownership.
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
There were more robots ordered for manufacturing and business purposes in the first half of 2016 than at any point ever before, according to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3). A3 says the rise in automated manufacturing “promises increased efficiencies in production and the ability to compete globally.”. In total, 14,583 robots, at a value of $817 million, were ordered by North American companies during the first half of 2016, according to A3, which is a record and a 2 percent growth
PYMNTS
AUGUST 17, 2016
Sure, there are a variety of things Alexa can do — such as order groceries, make playlists and tell jokes — but the usefulness of those things is rather subjective. Lost phone on the other hand? That’s something that affects approximately 99 percent of humans at some point and makes everyone everywhere hostile. It is also something Alexa can now fix for you.
Accountant Advocate brings together the best content for small business accounting professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
PayPal has made its latest strategic moves in the B2B payments space. Reports on Wednesday (Aug. 17) said the payments company has integrated with SME accounting platform Xero to allow small business users to use PayPal to pay the invoices generated on the Xero platform. Their collaboration will see the launch of a PayPal Express Checkout option for small businesses, reports said, enabling companies to pay their invoices as soon as they’re received.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Income-driven repayment plans for federal student loan borrowers may not be as great as they are billed. That’s according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Student Loan Ombudsman, which released a report showing consumers complain of servicing problems that make it hard to get lower student loan payments tied to their income. According to the CFPB, the delays and rejections can often result in increased interest charges and lost eligibility for other federal benefits and protec
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Russia’s love-hate relationship with digital currency continues. One minute officials are threatening to punish bitcoin operatives and traders, the next minute they are suggesting that citizens can use bitcoin “in areas where such activities are legal.”. A few days ago, Cryptocoinsnews said that Russia’s announcement that it would penalize whoever is involved in bitcoin operations would “end two years of speculation” on Russia’s stance.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
Big Data is big business. That’s become pretty much gospel for brands, retailers and marketers alike. And one of the most valuable forms of data right now is behavioral data because it tells a retailer or brand where a customer or potential customer goes, does and spends their time and money on. In other words, it’s a lot of that uber-valuable type of data.
Speaker: James Kahler, COO of Full Course
Ever wondered where to splurge and where to safely conserve when it comes to operating and growing your restaurant? 🤔 Join James Kahler, COO of Full Course and industry visionary, in this new webinar where he'll talk all about best practices to invest in your restaurant's success! Whether you're a new business or an established restaurant, a seasoned pro or a rookie, you'll learn the keys to sustainable success in this competitive industry.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
As the instances and threat of ransomware continues to wreak havoc on both businesses, governments and individuals around the world, it seems as though bitcoin has found itself closely intertwined with the malicious software. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out on Friday (Aug. 19), cybercriminals have earned millions through ransomware schemes of encrypting computer systems and files, only to hold them hostage for ransom.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Back-to-school shopping season may be in full swing, but holiday shopping season will soon be on deck after that. And one exec from Merkle , the data-based marketing agency with over 100 prominent retail clients, believes retailers need to start planning their holiday shopping strategies now. Ryan Gibson, executive vice president of marketing strategy at Merkle, provided a series of tips and insights to retailers during a presentation at the eTail East summit in Boston on Thursday (Aug. 18) enti
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
Software company Hypersocket Software is warning businesses that they should pay attention to what the recent data breach at accounting company Sage means for them. In an release on Wednesday (Aug. 17), Hypersocket said Sage’s data breach brings the issue of insider threats to light and reveals the need for better access control within the enterprise.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 15, 2016
Who doesn’t like it when a customer walks back through that door or buys another item from the website? But what is it that makes a customer “loyal” to a brand? And how can retailers harness and exploit this trait? The folks at Internet Retailer took a look at brand loyalty, the importance of customer retention programs and why it’s cheaper to retain an existing customer than market to a new one by surveying hundreds of eCommerce companies and executives.
Speaker: Jamie Eagan
As organizations strive for agility and efficiency, it's imperative for finance leaders to embrace innovative technologies and redefine traditional processes. Join us as we explore the pivotal role of digitalization and automation in reshaping what is commonly referred to as the “last mile of reporting”. We’ll deep-dive into why digitalization is no longer a choice, but a necessity for finance departments to stay competitive in a fast-paced environment touching on: 2024 trends for the Office of
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
Wheelys Café , a Swedish-based startup business that is a fully organic bicycle café that sells everything from coffee to apples and other healthy foods, has raised $830,000 in crowdfunding on the Swedish crowdsourcing site FundedByMe for expansion purposes, according to TechCrunch. This is just the latest in a series of positive news for Wheelys Café, which has also found itself backed by Y Combinator to plot a future as a potential competitor to Starbucks and has raised $150,000 in funding i
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
[link]. We all know teenagers have a tendency to be a bit rebellious. While some may be skipping school or making prank calls, there’s a growing demographic of teenagers out there with a new, more illicit hobby. Fraud. When it comes to fraudsters it’s easy to think of them as a faceless, nameless group of cybercriminals that come out to wreak havoc on payment systems and then retreat back to the hidden corners of the dark web.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Book lovers might want to rejoice — or at least, there’s new data that shows book sales on the rise for the first time in years, which could harken a potential return for the struggling bookseller industry. According to information compiled by Statista , U.S. bookstores had their first positive sales year last year since 2009. Bookstores sales were up 1.9 percent total in 2015 to just over $5 billion, after years of sharp declines since 2009 that sometimes saw losses of over 7 percent of total s
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
Marketing pioneer John Wanamaker famously said “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”. With the Chief Marketing Officer Council expecting marketers to spend more than $500 billion on advertising this year, the half that’s potentially being wasted is no small problem. Furthermore, measuring how effectively and efficiently those dollars are being used can be difficult.
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Customers’ tastes, habits, preferences, opinions and attitudes are constantly shifting. A new study looking at the changing habits of consumers explores the role that social currency has in influencing consumers’ shopping habits and preferences. So what is social currency? Put simply, social currency is anything that a consumer shares about themselves – be it online, via social media or in person – because they believe it will make others like them.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
For credit card companies, customer satisfaction matters — and matters a lot. And when it comes to satisfaction, Discover gets top billing for the third year in a row, according to the J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study. In a press release highlighting the results of the survey, Discover said it received a total of 827 points out of 1,000, surpassing the rest of the industry by an average of 31 points.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
One Call Care Management , the provider of cost containment services for the workers’ compensation industry, announced on Wednesday (Aug. 17) that it inked a partnership with Lyft , the ride-hailing app that got a huge investment from General Motors earlier this year. In a press release , One Call Care Management said that it tapped Lyft to provide non-emergency patients with transportation.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
The financial messaging service known as SWIFT — which operates as a bank-owned consortium and helps payments in the billions of dollars move globally — has been beset by security flaws, has known about those flaws and has done little to address those flaws. So reported Reuters on Wednesday (Aug. 17), as the newswire said that more than a dozen current and former SWIFT officials maintained that security issues beset smaller banks that are among the 10,000 banks that use the service across more
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
In this week’s edition of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , we explore the richness of Tokyo, Japan and its potential to be a tech hub powerhouse. Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about Tokyo and its tech scene: Tokyo, Japan has an estimated population of over 13 million people. With a GDP of nearly $1,520 billion per capita, the city is considered the wealthiest in the world and contributes heavily to the global economy.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 16, 2016
So, how did a “team of geeks” with “zero experience” in the fashion or retail industries go on to become the second fastest-growing retail company in the U.S. and a serious disruptor to the $24 billion annual lingerie industry long dominated by Victoria’s Secret ? That “team of geeks” would be the folks at Adore Me , the disruptive eCommerce lingerie startup founded by a Harvard Business School student in 2011 after he couldn’t find his girlfriend any affordable lingerie online for their anniver
PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Putting traditional car manufacturers eyeing the ride-hailing space on notice, Uber has reached an agreement with Volvo , enabling customers in downtown Pittsburgh to order up a self-driving car from their mobile app starting later in August. According to a report by Bloomberg , Uber’s Pittsburgh fleet of self-driving cars , which will be supervised by a live person in the driver’s seat for now, will be made up of modified Volvo XC90 SUVs that have a ton of sensors that enable the cars to drive
PYMNTS
AUGUST 16, 2016
At least one corner of the IPO world may see a resurgence: Asian tech companies. None other than the New York Stock Exchange anticipates that technology firms from that region will have a renaissance next year, with double-digit percentage gains over 2016 levels. That prediction comes from the head of the exchange’s global head of capital markets, Garvis Toler.
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 19, 2016
Google said in a blog post on Thursday (Aug. 18) that its development team will open “a new space for developers and startups” in San Francisco next month. The company is developing 14,000 square feet of space at 301 Howard Street, with “more than enough elbow room to train, educate and collaborate with local and international developers and startups.”.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 16, 2016
The business of retail apps is booming. In 2015 alone, app sales increased to $59.86 billion from $35.48 billion in 2014, an increase of 68.7 percent, according to a new study. And 303 of the world’s top 500 retailers now have an app. The study, conducted by ARC from Applause, a research group that analyzes the apps economy, looked at 50 of those top retailers that received approximately half of their total sales through mobile apps.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 18, 2016
Artificial intelligence may once have been the purview of science fiction books and movies, but increasingly, it is being used as a way for businesses to get a handle on the daily minutiae of transactions and customer interaction. One firm that has been marrying work processes and machine learning is WorkFusion , which, through AI cognitive services, seeks to automate what can be termed “knowledge work”— in effect, everything from invoices to eCommerce itself — in a process that has
PYMNTS
AUGUST 17, 2016
Yelp shocked analysts with strong Q2 earnings. Yelp’s mission to connect active consumers with great local businesses through its crowdsourced review platform had been stymied one year ago. Yelp’s renewed success is partly due to its increasing appeal among mobile users and its recent advancements in the mobile food space. Yelp has acquired Nowait, a mobile order ahead platform that allows diners to digitally add their names to a restaurant wait list before arriving at the location.
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"Offer payroll and do it yourself,” they said. “It’ll be fun!” Spoiler alert: It was not fun. Most CPA firms know that they need to offer payroll services to their clients or risk losing them to another firm that will. However, many don’t really want to. It is often time-consuming and complex due to changing tax laws and regulations, and with the growing staffing shortages, most just don’t have the resources.
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