Amazon’s Bitcoin Embrace And Cannabis Burgers Top The Week’s News

The end of a busy week provides a chance to catch up on the biggest news from the world of digital payments and commerce – news, trackers and even fun stories you may have missed. Welcome to the PYMNTS Weekender. We hope you enjoy.

Top Stories

Visa’s Next ‘Digital-First’ Act

Visa’s newest APIs will help those within the Visa ecosystem to create digital cards on demand and add digital services. The company also said digital accounts can be used to activate and tokenize other digital accounts across various mobile pay wallets. As Sam Shrauger, SVP of global issuer and consumer solutions at Visa, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, these new offerings reflect the fact that, for the firm and its partners, “we are in an industry that has gone from having to distribute plastic (consider it our version of the DVD), and having a whole physical chain that goes along with that in order for the consumer to use the product,” to one that has embraced the cloud.

Wirecard Raises $1B from SoftBank

The two companies also inked a partnership for digital payment solutions, in which SoftBank will support Wirecard’s geographic expansion in Japan and South Korea. The two will also look for ways to collaborate in digital payments, data analytics, AI and other digital financial services. In addition, they are expected to jointly explore new product and service offerings in digital lending.

How to Shake up B2B Financing at the Point of Sale

The idea started in the B2C world, but it wasn’t long before online sellers were asking about the use of point-of-sale financing for B2B — at least according to Chris Tsai, co-founder and CEO of Resolve, an Affirm spin-off, in an in-depth PYMNTS interview earlier this week. B2B, in some respects, is the stubborn mule of the digital economy, and represents a massive source of economic strength. However, Tsai said “conservative-minded CFOs” in B2B, along with legacy supply chain technologies and processes, serve to slow down any progress toward new payment and transaction methods.

Is Apple Card Already Changing Payments?

According to Ondot Systems CEO Vaduvur Bharghavan in a recent conversation with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, no matter if Apple wins or loses with the Apple Card, the company will change the conversation about how we pay by spurring existing stakeholders — especially card issuers — to examine how they come to market.

Amazon Embraces Bitcoin

Bitcoin, through the lightning network, will soon be available as an option to pay on Amazon and other eCommerce sites. Amazon itself does not handle the bitcoin, and it was not clear which financial institutions are converting it from crypto to fiat (real currency) so merchants can receive actual money. But by next year, users with the lightning feature on their browsers could be able to shop from any eCommerce site.

PayPal Eyes Credit to Monetize Venmo

Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, is reportedly settling on Synchrony Financial to issue the Venmo credit card. The aim is to announce the launch of the credit card in 2019. With digital payments starting to be adopted by consumers in the U.S., Venmo is one of the FinTechs that have been able to garner widespread adoption.

Top Trackers

How DraftKings Throws Curveballs to Fraudsters

In the April Digital Consumer Onboarding Tracker, PYMNTS explores how players from around the world are taking new approaches to onboarding security. In a feature story, Jennifer Aguiar, vice president of compliance and risk for DraftKings, explained a data-centric approach to providing behind-the-scenes security during onboarding, and throughout the entire customer relationship.

The Link Between GDPR and the Homesharing Market

In the April edition of the Payments and the Platform Economy Playbook, PYMNTS examines how regulatory compliance changes are impacting the growth of the sharing economy. The Playbook also looks at how payment services and other third-party platforms are working with shifting compliance demands to participate in the global sharing economy.

Fun, Odd and Edgy

Are CBD-Infused Burgers the Next QSR Fad?

Selling fast food these days is not exactly for the faint of heart, given how the industry faces extreme — and increasingly online — competition for the consumer dollar. Those competitive pressures have led to a host of new tools, features and offerings. The latest? Combining cannabis culture with hamburgers.

Mueller Report Reveals Bitcoin’s Russia Connection

No, you still cannot easily buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin. But it turns out you can use the cryptocurrency in an effort to sway an election. Along the dots to connect in the Mueller report lie several mentions of bitcoin, and how the virtual currency was used by Russian individuals and groups to try to impact the 2016 election.

The Chipotle Hack and the Troubling Trend of Credential Stuffing

Reports have appeared all over social media about Chipotle user accounts being pirated, with hundreds of dollars’ worth of food ordered to customer cards that those customers never saw. In many cases, according to reports, the delivery addresses on the fraudulent orders were from states different from the home addresses on the accounts.