Downey&Company
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
For Immediate Release: For further information, contact: Christine Morrison, (800) 849-6022. Braintree, Massachusetts – Paul McGovern, CPA, and James M. Downey, CPA, of Downey & Company, LLP, an accounting and business consulting firm, recently returned from the Fall Meeting of the National Alliance of Auto Dealer Advisors in Nashville, Tennessee.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
American consumers have fallen for mobile banking apps, but up to now, most businesses were not seemingly showing apps the same love. With the number of mobile banking customers now outnumbering those who bank at branches for the first time, consumers have warmly embraced banking via mobile apps. Despite that, the vast majority of American companies, particularly small businesses, have yet to adopt mobile financial management apps.
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Katz,Sapper&Miller
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
The 2016 election is now behind us. With the republicans controlling not only Congress, but the White House as well, many changes are being forecast for 2017. One area that could see sweeping change is tax law. While there is uncertainty surrounding what form these modifications to tax law might eventually take, the following proposals were part of President-elect Trump’s campaign materials.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Upward and onward seems like a hopeful phrase, doesn’t it? Unless it’s fraud you are talking about. At the end of 2014, the average U.S. household held five mobile devices, while, at the start of 2016, that number has increased to about 13. Tech is a wonderful thing, when used for the forces of good and for quality of life. But alongside that iPad your 10-year-old daughter needed, the rate of online fraud attacks on retailers has doubled, up 137 percent year over year in the first quarter of thi
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
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
Poland’s startup ecosystem may be considered still in its infancy compared to larger European tech hubs, like London and Berlin, but that doesn’t mean it should be overlooked by entrepreneurs or investors. In this week’s installment of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , we look at how the country’s capital city is developing a tech landscape that’s quickly catching up with its western counterparts.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Singapore-based B2B FinTech firm MC Payment announced a new funding round, as well as global expansion, late last week. Reports Friday (Nov. 11) said MC Payment raised $3.5 million from an investment firm in Thailand, as well as participation from Aura Funds Management, tryb Capital and Perle Ventures. The funds have also allowed the company to enter the Thailand market, reports said.
Accountant Advocate brings together the best content for small business accounting professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
U.S. prosecutors late last week charged a Florida man in connection with an illegal bitcoin exchange. According to a report by Reuters , Ricardo Hill, 38, was arrested in Florida in October and charged with conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting firm. Hill is linked to an illegal bitcoin exchange owned by a person in Israel that is accused of hacks on JPMorgan Chase.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
The payments landscape is only getting bigger. As more stakeholders and players join the fold, there’s a ripe opportunity to find innovative ideas in unlikely places. As part of the Commanders In Chief series, YapStone President David Weiss explained why it’s necessary to search both internally and externally for a growing number of partners and constituencies when carving out the path to innovation.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Small businesses aren’t getting their cybersecurity strategies right, according to new evidence from researchers. And with consequences ranging from data theft to noncompliance penalties, the stakes are high. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is looking to help. With a guide developed for SMEs in need of cybersecurity direction, NIST’s latest paper, “ Small Business Information Security: The Fundamentals ,” released last week, aims to shed light on
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
CFOs are struggling to keep up with how quickly the requirements for financial reporting are changing, researchers have found. EY researchers released new data this week that concluded CFOs and financial controllers are struggling to keep up with the pace of change when it comes to corporate reporting standards and demands. One of the biggest hurdles for these professionals is actually implementing the changes, citing the cost and complexity of the shifts, according to EY.
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
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
One of the biggest hurdles for any company working in different countries around the globe is ensuring compliance across all of the different regulatory frameworks. It’s not always possible to operate in Australia in the same way operations are done in China. The more borders that a business crosses, the more complex adhering to regulatory standards can become.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
Social media has taken on a life of its own — so much so that a new survey finds a lot of consumers value their life online at $100,000 to priceless. What’s more, 55 percent of survey respondents that partook in the Consumer Account Security Report 2016 put out by TeleSign said they place the responsibility of cybersecurity on businesses for their online and mobile accounts.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Banks’ shortcomings when servicing small business clients have become an engine behind the FinTech boom. Alternative lenders, for instance, largely emerged as a response to banks retreating from the SME lending market. Other SME-serving FinTech companies are offering the digital payments and cash management solutions many traditional FIs consider too costly to offer small businesses.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Being a landlord is never easy — especially when it’s not your full-time gig. And there are a lot of those. More than 60 percent of all property managers own and manage fewer than 20 units. Dealing with the headaches of marketing rental properties, vetting renters, getting leases signed, collecting security deposits and then servicing tenants means that these part-time landlords outsource those tasks to property managers who take a pretty hefty cut of their revenues.
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
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Political uncertainty, economic shifts, technological disruption — they all have an impact on how a small business feels about the current market climate. Small and medium-sized businesses can be fickle when it comes to adopting new technologies, for instance, or SMEs can feel hesitant to adopt emerging solutions, like on-demand services. From corporate use of Airbnb to SMEs’ confidence in cybersecurity, PYMNTS takes a look at the factors causing small businesses across the globe to either
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Smart Token Chain (STC), a company that explores the use of blockchain for smart contracts, tokenization and other transactions, has announced the completion of a Smart Token transaction over the blockchain. Using the Ripple Network, Smart Token Chain said it has successfully completed a Smart Token transaction. Smart Tokens, the company explained in its release, offer security for currency exchanges that support the transfer of smart contracts and funds via distributed ledger.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
Google announced Thursday (Nov. 17) that its Android Pay service which enables contactless mobile payments with Android mobile devices, is live in Poland. According to Google, Mastercard cardholders in Poland now have another way to make secure payments wherever Mastercard contactless payments are accepted. Google noted that Poland is the first country in central and eastern Europe and only the second country in Europe after the U.K. to launch the Google payment method.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
The CFPB is taking a closer look at consumers and the relationship to their financial records — specifically the issues they face in accessing, using, and securely sharing their financial records. “Consumers should be able to use their financial records and account information and securely share access in an electronic format,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
Advertiser: Paycor
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PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
KPMG had some bad news for the FinTech world this week. Along with CB Insights, KPMG researchers found in their latest quarterly analysis that FinTech investment by venture capitalists declined across the globe in Q3 of this year. Their “ Pulse of Fintech “ report found $2.4 billion in FinTech VC funding in the quarter, down 17 percent compared to the previous quarter — a stark decline from the $5 billion-plus quarterly investment values seen in quarters in 2015.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
As payments continues to move and evolve, it’s become clear that the approaches that worked well in the past may not be enough to keep moving the industry forward. Tre Cage , COO of AOC Solutions , explained to PYMNTS why taking on innovation in today’s payment landscape means keeping an eye on where things are moving, without losing sight of how consumer and merchant insights are changing along the way.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Augmented reality (AR) isn’t just for Pokémon Go players (yes, they still exist) and fodder for near-future existential dread by way of Black Mirror. It’s projected to be the future of marketing and commerce. Where the IoT proliferates, AR will follow. Or so say the pundits. How far outside of gaming and how that actually happens is a function of how mainstream the AR UI actually becomes.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
Merchant associations that represent tens of thousands of U.S. merchants are calling on Visa to provide steps to remedy what they say is violation of rules regarding EMV. In a press release , the group said it sent a letter to Visa CEO Charles Scharf and CEO-Designate Al Kelly after the Federal Reserve declared the technical specifications and rules provided to merchants as part of the move to EMV violated federal law.
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
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
New research from comScore MobiLens revealed that mobile banking penetration in France is almost 30 percent. In Q2 2016, more than half (54 percent) of the country’s internet users visited online banking sites on a monthly basis, averaging 10 visits per month lasting more than five minutes each time. The usage of mobile banking accounts is also climbing.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Research by Kaspersky Lab revealed that when the holiday shopping season unofficially kicks off on Block Friday, the number of financial phishing attacks is expected to surge. The Kaspersky Lab Black Friday Threat Overview 2016 report predicts that the observed pattern of the holiday period bringing along increases in phishing and other types of attacks will continue this year.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
Of all the barriers that exist to getting a disruptive technology off the ground, convincing users to change their behavior may be the most difficult. In corporate travel, there are two major forces that face this hurdle: virtual payments and sharing economy services. Both are slowly infiltrating the business traveler’s life, whether by businesses adding on-demand services, like Airbnb, to their list of approved travel vendors or by travel managers and accounting professionals making the s
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
USA Technologies, the payment technology service provider for the self-service retail market , announced Wednesday (Nov. 16) the launch of its Universal Card Link Connector, which enables industry operators in the amusement and arcade industries to connect cashless payment options, such as credit and debit cards and mobile wallets, to their equipment.
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
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
Banking payments platform provider linked2pay wants to help financial institutions implement real-time payments capabilities. The company said Tuesday (Nov. 15) that banks using its Bank Centric Payments platform will now have access to real-time payments thanks to a collaboration with Push Payments. Their partnership will allow financial institutions to offer real-time and same-day ACH payments as a white-labeled solution, reports said.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 16, 2016
GE may have something with its software business, announcing Tuesday (Nov. 15) that its software and services business is expected to hit $6 billion in sales in 2016. According to a report , $6 billion in sales is 20 percent higher than what GE lodged in 2015. It also puts GE on track to reach its goal of having annual revenue of $15 billion in 2020.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
China’s recently launched cybersecurity law is getting the support of Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. According to a report by Fortune , Alibaba and Tencent said during the World Internet Conference in China that there needs to be closer cooperation between the private and public sectors in China. The new law, which puts broad restrictions on technology companies in China, is aimed at removing cybersecurity threats from industries it deems critical and at fighting terrorism, reported Fortune.
PYMNTS
NOVEMBER 15, 2016
Chatbots can now fly you around the world. This week, Lufthansa’s chatbot named Mildred took flight with capabilities of helping flyers search for cheap flights and book tickets using natural language processing through Wit.ai. Mildred will recognize your requests in both English and German and will employ the Google geolocation database for tourist attractions around destinations.
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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