Square has closed $150 million in new venture financing, bringing Square’s current value to about $6 billion, the New York Times reported Sunday (Oct. 5). The new financing round was led the Government of Singapore Investment Corp.—a new investor—and included Goldman Sachs and Rizvi Traverse...
Samsung is making its NFC payment move in China, in a deal with UnionPay, China’s largest payment card firm. “The Shanghai-based card company said UnionPay’s NFC payment system can be used by more than 3.6 million Samsung smartphones in China, including the Galaxy Note 4,...
China’s two biggest online services already have large payments operations — and now both have permission to be bankers, too. On Monday (Sept. 29), Alibaba Group’s Alipay affiliate won permission from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to set up a privately owned bank, according to...
There’s no doubt that Apple Pay has a lot going for it. It’s the payment method birthed by a beloved consumer brand and technology giant, it has the backing of the biggest payments players on the planet and it has those same players using their...
The long-anticipated Facebook Messenger payments offering is real and imminent, based on screen captures of Facebook code now circulating. “Messenger’s payment option lets users send money in a message similar to how they can send a photo,” TechCrunch reported. “Users can add a debit card...
Visa CEO Charlie Scharf is trying to change the payments conversation, from reaching out to retailers—some of whom, he freely admits, “hate” Visa—to embracing mobile and cyber currency strategies, according to an extensive BusinessWeek profile published Thursday (Oct. 2). “A 4-foot-tall robot with a video...
For several hours on Wednesday (Oct. 1), PayPal transactions disappeared and PayPal, while acknowledging that something happened, hasn’t yet shared what that was. “Sellers all over the Internet were scrambling when payments went missing from their PayPal accounts for hours on October 1. And it...
Digital River, a commerce-as-a-service vendor, on Wednesday (Oct. 1) said that it would support Apple Pay on its mPOS line. “Today’s merchants are looking for support for emerging payments beyond magnetic stripe,” said Souheil Badran, senior vice president and general manager of Digital River World...
Bill Gates thinks Apple Pay is a powerful move forward for the payments space and anticipates it will set in motion a wide range of positive developments. In a Bloomberg TV interview, Gates said Apple Pay shows what is possible. “Apple Pay is a great...
