Top News
Why Mastercard Acquired Nets
For Mastercard, the acquisition furthers its continued strategy to move well beyond cards, to deepen its presence in account-to-account activity and to extend its position beyond credit and debit cards.
Bank Regulators Probe Amazon Cloud
The Federal Reserve orchestrated an official investigation of an Amazon facility in Virginia, kicking off what is expected to be ongoing oversight of cloud providers.
Walmart’s Answer to Facebook’s Libra: the Walmart Coin
The world’s largest retailer by sales quietly filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a blockchain-backed digital currency all its own.
Visa: Business Payments Network Paves ‘Highway’ for B2B Payments
In the B2B realm, payments travel anything but a straight line. Transactions between buyers and suppliers wind down roads that curve, that twist and turn and sometimes lead to dead ends amid manual processes, paper checks and even faxes.
The Fed Debuts FedNow
It’s now official: The Fed plans to build its own instant clearing and settlement rails.
Trackers and Reports
Payments Help Merchants Fight Consumer App Fatigue
The App Store and Google Play collectively offer more than five million mobile apps offering every type of service imaginable – ridesharing, music and video streaming, aggregators, banking, quick-service restaurants (QSR), retail merchants and countless others.
What Sharing Economy Platforms Don’t Get About Digital ID
Overall, some 111 million consumers use some type of sharing economy platform to enhance their day-to-day lives. Hiding among these legit users are fraudsters and other bad actors who are increasingly targeting sharing economy platforms.
The Fed’s Dos And Don’ts for Digital ID Verification
The use of digital ID verification methods is becoming more prevalent in consumers’ everyday lives. With that shift, governments such as the U.K.’s are exploring options for developing nationwide digital ID systems that can enable access to various services.
As SCA Deadline Looms, Merchants Scramble
Strong customer authentication (SCA) will officially roll out in one month. The regulation is aimed at protecting consumers and merchants from fraudsters and other online criminals aiming to access their financial information, which means increased security at online checkout.
Fun, Cool and Otherwise Interesting
KYB, Shell Companies and Pot Payments Gone Rogue
Fraud comes in many flavors, and a payments-related lawsuit arising from the growing business of legal, recreational marijuana is proof of that point.
Weddings, the Millennial Way? There’s a Marketplace for That
In the latest edition of the PYMNTS Matchmakers interview series, Sam McElhinney, co-founder and CEO of Mayflower Venues, discussed with Karen Webster how a digital marketplace approach can smooth the planning process – and even help spark economic activity for rural areas.
Has Apple Won the Wearables Wars?
The customer relationship seems to be the main storyline in the smartwatch wars, a competition that has recently seen Fitbit lose significant ground thanks to Apple and its own products and ecosystem.