“The legislation, if ultimately made into law, would protect financial institutions and ancillary firms that serve marijuana businesses from criminal prosecution and other consequences – a long-awaited move that would provide stability and security to the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry.”

“Wirecard, a global innovation leader for digital financial technology, is driving unified commerce worldwide with a new Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration. This will enable merchants to integrate their shops with Wirecard’s digital Financial Commerce Platform and provide both business customers and consumers with an optimal payment experience…By using the Wirecard platform, merchants are able to accept all major digital payment methods as well as benefit from post-processing operations such as capture, refund and cancellation within the same service offering.”

“UK-based neobank Revolut has implemented a Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) system that lets customers use their mobile banking app to authenticate their contactless card as they get close to reaching the new contactless transaction limit, avoiding the risk of having their card declined when they next attempt to make an in-store purchase.”

“As part of Stripe’s environmental program , we fully offset our greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing verified carbon offsets. Starting this year, we’re going a step further. In addition to our offset program, we are committing to pay, at any available price, for the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its sequestration in secure, long-term storage. We’re announcing this commitment to solicit technology partners and to urge other companies to follow suit.”

“With the new Wirecard app, cardholders can seamlessly track related balances and payment activities on their mobile device, benefiting from digital personal finance mangement. The mobile app is part of Wirecard’s drive to advance the digital transformation of payments and build a more integrative financial experience globally. In designing the app, Wirecard included the flexibility to cobrand with its clients, while keeping end-users’ needs and preferences in focus.”

“Klarna has raised $460 million in an equity investment round, at a valuation of $5.5 billion, to help fund its push into the US market.The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, alongside Commonwealth Bank of Australia, HMI Capital, Merian Chrysalis Investment Company, Första AP-Fonden (AP1), IPGL, IVP and funds managed by BlackRock. This investment follows funding in April that closed above the company’s $100 million target, driven by strong demand from Klarna’s existing investor base.”

“The battle is dividing financial firms and policy makers at a time when payments are becoming a potential flashpoint between banking and big tech. Facebook Inc. has announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency-based payments system on the back of its social network, while Chinese giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. have developed digital payments systems that dominate in that country.”

“Finix , a three-year-old, 30-person startup based in San Francisco, raised $17.5 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Visa and Insight Venture Partners, among other investors. It aims to help companies manage and monetize payments by becoming their own payment processors. In the same way Twilio’s white-label software lets Uber users seamlessly call their driver through the app, and just as Marqeta lets DoorDash control how debit card transactions are processed, Finix lets companies own and control their payment processing.”

“As an innovative multi-currency solution, available in more than 20 currencies, Next Generation Virtual Accounts build on the reconciliation benefits of traditional virtual accounts by enabling treasurers to centralise payments and receivables across multiple and single entity structures. Clients can consolidate hundreds of bank accounts into a handful, or as few as one account for each currency that they use. Transactions flow through the underlying physical accounts, with the virtual accounts acting as ledger records. This saves treasury teams the operational cost of managing cash across multiple accounts and reduces the need for complex cash sweeps and pools.”

“In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the colorful stickers and placards of popular e-wallets like Moca and Momo are appearing on storefronts—a sign that Vietnamese urbanites are embracing cashless payment methods. But that’s just two cities. Overall, nearly 90% of the country’s transactions still use cash. The Vietnamese government has been open about its intentions to reverse this. In 2017, it decided to implement measures that aim to reduce cash transactions to just 10% by 2020, allowing digital methods to take their place. It’s an ambitious plan, but there is good reason to think that this goal is achievable at some point in the near future.”

“Cumberland Farms , a leading coffee, convenience and gasoline retailer, today announced the launch of its new Cumberland Farms App, which is the next evolution of its highly successful SmartPay Check-Link® program. The new app gives users two payment options:

• SmartPay Check-Link®, which links to a checking account or Netspend® account and saves users 10 cents per gallon every day
• A prepaid account (minimum $25 load) linked to a credit or debit card which saves users 10 cents per gallon for their first 30 days of enrollment”

“EMV chip card payments made substantial gains in the U.S. last year, but the nation still lags most other regions in EMV penetration, according to new figures from payment card standards body EMVCo. Some 53.5% of general-purpose U.S. card-present transactions in 2018 were so-called chip-on-chip, meaning both the point-of-sale terminal and the card were EMV-enabled, up from 41.2% in 2017, EMVCo data show. EMV penetration is highest in EMVCo’s Europe Zone 1 consisting primarily of Western and Northern Europe, with 97.3% of 2018’s POS transactions EMV-enabled—down slightly from 98.6% in 2017.”

“Facebook Inc. has signed up more than a dozen companies including Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., MA +0.19% PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL +0.68% and Uber Technologies Inc. UBER -0.52% to back a new cryptocurrency it plans to unveil next week and launch next year. The financial and e-commerce companies, venture capitalists and telecommunications firms will invest around $10 million each in a consortium that will govern the digital coin, called Libra, according to people familiar with the matter. The money would be used to fund the creation of the coin, which will be pegged to a basket of government-issued currencies to avoid the wild swings that have dogged other cryptocurrencies, they said.”

“The EMV Secure Remote Commerce Specification v1.0, as it’s formally known, comes from the international payments-standards body EMVCo and is aimed at decluttering online checkouts by mimicking the cardholder experience at a physical terminal inside a store. The aim is to allow consumers shopping on an e-commerce site, for example, to pay for purchases with a single click on a single button. The new standard is also seen as a new weapon in combatting fraud, which ballooned in online markets after the rollout of EMV chip card payments tightened security at point-of-sale terminals in U.S. stores. Mastercard for its part says it will combine its SRC launch with access for merchants to machine-learning tools from NuData, an anti-fraud technology company the card network acquired in 2017.”

“Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -4.52% on Monday said it has made more than 10 million products available for free one-day delivery to Prime members in the U.S., the latest salvo in a battle over speedier shipping speeds with rival Walmart Inc. WMT +0.36% The e-commerce giant is touting the arbitrary milestone about three weeks after Walmart announced it would begin offering free next-day delivery shipping on about 200,000 products for shoppers on some orders in a handful of cities. The two rivals have been one-upping each other with announcements of faster shipping options as they seek to cater to ever-demanding online shoppers.”

Key Findings:

• 75% expect all delivery options to be displayed on product pages
• 75% have purchased more items to take advantage of a minimum spend ‘free delivery’ option
• 70% expect to pay extra for one-hour, same day, next day or Sunday delivery
• 54% of consumers expect to be able to choose which carrier delivers their online purchases
• 55% expect one-hour delivery in metropolitan areas

“Program streamlines international tuition and healthcare payments for UnionPay cardholders from China Flywire and UnionPay International today announced that they are re-launching a promotional program that provides Chinese students and patients with discounted foreign exchange rates on cross-border tuition and healthcare payments. The effort is a continuation of a highly successful partnership beginning in the Spring of 2018, and is timed to coordinate with the season when students hear back from Universities about their acceptance.”

“ACH volume in the first quarter was 6 billion payments: 3.5 billion debits and 2.5 billion credits. Internet-initiated payments rose 10.3% to 1.6 billion. And there were increases of more than 9% in both business-to-business (B2B) payments overall and in healthcare claim payments, to 927 million and 78 million, respectively. There was also a more than 25% jump in person-to-person transactions to nearly 36 million. Same Day ACH has been on an impressive trajectory since its introduction and the first quarter of 2019 was no exception. There were 52.7 million Same Day ACH payments, up 24% from the same period in 2018.”

“The webinar, “Contactless Open Payments for Transit,” was developed by the Forum’s Communication and Education Working Committee in partnership with the Transit Contactless Open Payments Working Committee. It will be held on May 1, 2019 at 1pm ET/10am PT. More details and registration are available at https://www.uspaymentsforum.org/contactless-open-payments-for-transit-webinar/ .”

“Apple has quietly ended the the option of funding Apple Pay Cash balances from a credit card. The company made the low-key announcement on the same day it announced the Apple Card. Previously, if you wanted to make a person-to-person payment via Apple Cash, and didn’t have sufficient balance, you could withdraw money from a linked credit card. Cheddar anchor Hope King noticed the change, sent to Apple Pay Cash users.”

“The rewards of focusing so closely on the customer experience are many. To guarantee success, however, banks must deliver the same kinds of intuitive, low-friction – even fun – experiences that popular consumer apps do while bearing a heavier regulatory burden commensurate with their status as licensed, insured depositories and custodians of personal data. That’s a tall order without the right tools. BioCatch and Entersekt have both built impressive patent portfolios by developing tools that help secure self-service channels while enhancing the customer experience. Their collaboration promises to generate innovative new use cases, such as passwordless login and enhanced remote user registration.”

“Walmart executives are betting the upstart becomes a powerful weapon in an escalating technological ground war with Amazon.com Inc. , as the two companies battle over shoppers who are increasingly making all sorts of purchases online. Amazon reset the landscape with Prime, in which more than 100 million people globally get two-day delivery and other perks for $119 a year. Even though Walmart is bigger in sales overall, it is an underdog online, and it is fighting for a larger presence. Walmart is using Jetblack’s army of human agents to train an artificial intelligence system that could someday power an automated personal-shopping service, preparing Walmart for a time when the search bar disappears and more shopping is done through voice-activated devices, said Jetblack CEO Jenny Fleiss.”

“Singapore’s largest telecommunications carrier Singtel has expanded its Via cross-border payments alliance to Japan. Via, the first cross-border mobile payment alliance in Asia in partnership with AIS, Thai digital bank Kasikornbank, and Boost Malaysia, is now also partnering with Tokyo-based mobile payment technology company Netstars and its 100,000 stores across Japan. The alliance allows customers of those companies to “pay instantly in their local currency, transact conveniently and securely, and enjoy competitive foreign exchange rates in Japan, and across the networks of all wallet members in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia”.”

“Chipotle is one of the most mentioned brands on Venmo, a leading payment app for splitting and sharing payments with Venmo friends in the app’s social feed. For a chance to receive anywhere between $1 and $500, consumers submit the phone number associated with their Venmo account at CHIPOTLEREWARDME.COM. Within 24 hours, recipients of the payouts will be alerted of the payment in the Venmo app with a payment note from Chipotle along with a custom Chipotle pepper emoji, which is the first of its kind in the restaurant industry on the platform.”

“When ConnectFSS began implementing the FIVE Voice Banking Platform for clients, president Grant Parry saw an opportunity to combine FIVE with work being done on CULedger’s MyCUID digital credential solution. Now, the consortium is working on a new way for members to authenticate during their voice banking transactions, utilizing the security benefits offered by MyCUID’s DLT-based self-sovereign identity platform.”

“The service, called PayAll, can be accessed from Citi’s mobile app and every transaction would incur a fee payable to the bank. It is currently available in Singapore where average transactions are around $3,500. The service is expected to be available in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand by the end of the year. Additional spending categories are expected to be introduced over time, the bank said. Asia has pioneered the bank’s digital and mobile lending services, which are then rolled out globally, Sergio Zanatti, head of cards and unsecured lending in Asia Pacific at Citi, told CNBC.”

“Tappy Technologies (Tappy Tech or “Tappy”), the Hong Kong-based wearable and digital payments solution provider, has launched a partnership with Timex Group, in a move set to shake-up the traditional watch industry. Tappy, the first licensed Wearable Token Service Provider of its kind, will offer a unifying platform for digital and mobile payments to traditional watch brands enabling them to turn their products into cutting-edge mobile payment carriers.”