PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
In this week’s edition of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , we check out a small country with a huge potential to emerge as one of Europe’s premier FinTech spaces. Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about the Netherlands and its tech scene: . The Netherlands is estimated to have a population of 17 million. The country’s GDP was approximately $880 billion in 2014.
Katz,Sapper&Miller
AUGUST 9, 2016
The Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate’s (AFIRE) annual foreign investment survey reported that 64 percent of respondents intend to increase U.S. investment in real estate in 2016. Data collected by Real Capital Analytics Inc. indicates that foreign purchases of U.S. real estate leapt from less than $5 billion in completed deals in 2009 to $87.3 billion of completed deals in 2015.
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PYMNTS
AUGUST 11, 2016
The term “ Internet of Things ” has become a big buzzword in business lately, but what exactly is it and why might it shape the future of the retail industry? Simply put, think of the Internet of Things as an “interconnected ecosystem of internet-enabled objects,” according to eMarketer. So, things like your mobile device and tablet are part of the Internet of Things.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Banks across the globe have invested resources into exploring blockchain technology, and that includes in Canada. But this year, the nation thrust itself into the center of the movement that looks to turn blockchain theory into reality when, in July, Canadian bank ATB Financial successfully sent money to a German bank via blockchain technology — in just 20 seconds.
Speaker: Victor C. Barnes, CPA, MBA
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
First, it was Oracle Corp. and its MICROS customers that were getting hacked, and now, it appears more cash register vendors are falling victim to hacks that were allegedly conducted by the same Russian organized cybercrime group. That’s according to Forbes , which said it was informed by five cash register providers of the breach. According to the report, in the last month, Cin7, ECRS, Navy Zebra, PAR Technology and Uniwell were all hacked.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
The coming ascendence of augmented reality and virtual reality have long been article fodder for tech enthusiasts, gamers and retail watchers alike. And for good reason – the story of virtual and augmented reality makes for some great copy. Oculus Rift rose from being a plucky crowdfunded upstart to a $2 billion dollar acquisition by Facebook – a deal that Marc Zuckerberg touted at the time as a first step toward using AR/VR tech to connect the entire world in wholly different ways.
Accountant Advocate brings together the best content for small business accounting professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
Procure-to-pay tools have embraced the cloud, landing the enterprise with an automated solution to track spend. The purpose of automation, largely, is to boost visibility into where corporate dollars are going. But with all of those eInvoicing and spend analytics tools out there, a few things are missing. Purchase order modules and accrual management tools are rare breeds in the procure-to-pay automation services space, according to Ben Portusach, CEO of Accrualify.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
Sure, most of us want to dress as much like our favorite celebrity as possible, but matching the sartorial choices of people who employ armies of stylists is not an easy thing to do. You could pay the Kardashians to tell you how to dress on their app, but what if your goal is to be styled like Taylor Swift? Well for you — and all the other customers in the world with a hankering to add more celebrity wow factor to their clothing — there is Crave.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Millennials just aren’t wearing jeans any longer. You might notice the trend in the streets, as more and more millennials are switching up the look of traditional denim jeans for stylish (and far more comfortable) sweatpants or yoga pants from Lululemon, Nike or Under Armour. And it’s a trend that is definitely starting to manifest itself on retail shelves as well, as a recent study by Synchrony Financial found that 80 percent of those surveyed said that they have worn “athleisure” clothing — de
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
In something of a Team of Rivals move – the biggest baks in the United States are teaming up to take on the ever increasing population of cybercriminals trying to hack them. Involved in the partnership are J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others. The early goals of the group will be around information sharing – and making sure that a threat that appears against one (or a few) entities can be contained quickly through knowledge.
Speaker: Kim Beynon, CPA, CGMA, PMP
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
What have the powerhouses Starbucks and Airbnb managed to do better than anyone else? Establish customer intimacy, according to Bill Clerico, CEO of WePay. Clerico has built WePay from the ground up through his innate love of people and by building relationships with customers to provide them with a payments platform that is exactly what they want and need.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Computer hacks of corporate systems are on the rise, and while KPMG found 80 percent of organizations have confirmed their systems have been hacked, only half spend the money and time to invest in cybersecurity. According to KPMG’s Consumer Loss Barometer report, eight out of 10 companies said they have been hacked or compromised by a cyberattack during the last two years, but of the 403 CIOs, CISOs and CTOs surveyed, only half said they invested in technology to keep the bad guys out.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
While the FinTech industry is exploring the potential of blockchain technology, some are taking another path and exploring how another distributed ledger, Ethereum, could also make disruptions. One group of Ethereum developers said they have successfully completed the first-ever transactions that are off-blockchain. A payment was made from Denmark to India on Ethereum, initiated by the developers behind Raiden.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 6, 2016
Most people will never once think about their SAT score once they’ve submitted it to the college of their choice. But for a brief but highly meaningful amount of time , most budding American college students (and their parents ) stress big time about taking the SAT tests. It’s a very, very big deal since it is more or less the standardized test that will determine where that kid will go to college.
Speaker: Mark Gilham, FCCA, CPP
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
Enterprise services firm Hexaware and smart process automation company WorkFusion are linking up to bring automated service to corporations using artificial intelligence. An announcement on Thursday (Aug. 11) said the two businesses will combine their specialties to help the enterprise become more productive and agile while reducing costs. “This collaboration is a strong reinforcement of our commitment to deliver workplace-transforming technologies to our customers using Digital Managed Se
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Big Data management firm MapR is looking to go public, but before it does, the company announced a big funding round. Reports on Tuesday (Aug. 9) said MapR Technologies raised $50 million from several big-name backers. It was led by Australia-based Future Fund, according to reports, with additional participation from existing investors Google Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, New Enterprise Associates, Qualcomm Ventures and Redpoint Ventures, reports by TechCrunch said.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Alternative lending was born from a lack of big bank financing for small businesses in the wake of the financial crisis. But according to the latest figures from Biz2Credit , neither big banks nor alternative lenders are doing so hot in terms of SME loan volume. The latest report of its Small Business Lending Index , released on Tuesday (Aug. 9), revealed that big banks — those with more than $10 billion in assets — reduced their small business lending volumes in July 2016.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Who doesn’t want an investment that’s insulated from external events, while also offering them a high probable return on their investment? LexShares , according to CEO and Cofounder Jay Greenberg, does that and in a pretty counterintuitive way. Well, if you have an appetite for throwing money into a marketplace that lends money to plaintiffs in exchange for the promise that they’ll not only have their day in court but win.
Advertiser: Paycor
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
The FAIR Institute , a nonprofit aimed at developing standard information risk management practices, announced on Thursday (Aug. 11) it teamed up with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to publish a new resource to help enterprises and government organizations enhance their cybersecurity risk analysis , reporting and decision-making.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Employee travel has been an area of innovation and technological advancement in recent times, but the space is far from where it should be, according to Runzheimer. The company, which provides services for businesses with a mobile workforce, published new analysis on where businesses are falling short when it comes to managing their traveling employees and the corporate money they spend.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
What’s so hard about paying contract workers who work cross-border in a variety of far-flung locales and who want to be paid in the currency easiest for them to use in their home countries? Nothing, if those workers don’t mind wondering when their paycheck will arrive and expensive to access. Hyperwallet says the root of this problem is technology that hasn’t kept pace with the changing workforce – and their needs.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 9, 2016
Security researchers have identified the once unknown hacking group behind a malicious malware called Remsec. Reuters reported on Monday (August 8) that the newly discovered group has been around since 2011 and is linked to cyber espionage attacks in various countries around the world. “The group has maintained a low profile until now and its targets have been mainly organizations and individuals that would be of interest to a nation state’s intelligence services.
Speaker: Cheryl J. Muldrew-McMurtry
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
While the focus of the 2016 Olympic Games is on the athletes and their remarkable feats, there is also a monumental yet under-the-radar task currently underway that involves auctioning off and processing global buyers’ payments for hundreds of thousands of items from Olympic villages and venues in Rio. An online marketplace has been established to sell bulk quantities of items, ranging from furniture to fixtures, used by athletes staying at the Rio Olympic and Paralympic villages.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
The North Indian state of Haryana wants to help its rural farmers go digital when selling to businesses. Reports by Business Standard on Thursday (Aug. 11) said Haryana Food and Supplies Minister Karan Dev Kamboj will empower farmers to sell their crops online. The announcement will position these farmers with an eProcurement facility ahead of the paddy procurement season.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 9, 2016
The Force is strong with toy sales , apparently. Buoyed by the success of the latest Star Wars movie released just before Christmas, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” sales of Star Wars toys have been leading a bullish toy industry, which is poised to post its best numbers since 1999, and there’s still months to go in the year that will be capped off with the biggest toy shopping season of them all — Christmas.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
Some sanguine news comes from Fitch Ratings regarding the state of the U.S. credit arena, as evidenced by card usage and payments. The firm said the performance of U.S. credit card ABS (that means asset-backed securities, which are fixed-income vehicles offering up cash flow from pooled credit card accounts) are performing nicely, with payment rates tied to a Fitch index on the upswing.
Speaker: Frank Taliano
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.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 12, 2016
The fallout from the Bitfinex hack , which cost the digital exchange $72 million, has customers losing 36 percent of the assets that they held on the digital platform. Bitfinex has attempted to appease those affected by offering tokens of credit that can be redeemed by Bitfinex or its parent company, iFinex. Consumer confidence will not be bolstered by the news that no one seems to have any idea of the techniques used by the hackers or, at least, Bitfinex and other experts are not admitting that
PYMNTS
AUGUST 11, 2016
A new study found that customers who use self-service checkout lanes are twice as likely to shoplift items than those that don’t, according to The New York Times. Professors at the University of Leicester in England studied nearly 12 million shopping trips from 2013 to 2015 in the U.S., Britain and other parts of Europe and discovered that self-check lanes offered “ready-made excuses” for customers to take merchandise without paying for it.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Health care companies hold the keys to a lot of sensitive consumer data, and a hack of that data could open up a can of worms. That could be the case with 12 health care payers, who are at risk of being hacked after a health care vendor was compromised. According to a report , which quoted a spokesperson for Newkirk Products, the vendor that was hacked, the cyberattack may have impacted around 3.3 million.
PYMNTS
AUGUST 10, 2016
Mobile apps are supposed to be convenient, but eBay wants to make them even easier to use , announcing earlier this week new updates to its mobile app. On its website, eBay said that, following the May update to its Android and iOS mobile apps, the company is making it even easier for people to buy and sell things online, implementing One Time Password on both apps, Touch ID Authentication capabilities on oOS and support of the Android Wear platform.
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.
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