A leading payments industry news source for more than 17 years. Glenbrook curates the news and keeps you abreast of the important daily headlines in payments.
Search Payments News
February 23, 2022
On the wires
Billtrust Announces Coupa As a Referral Partner and Business Payments Network (BPN) Provider
“Billtrust (NASDAQ: BTRS), a B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated payments leader, announced today that Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP), a leader in business spend management, has joined Billtrust’s Business Payments Network (BPN) as a provider and the Billtrust Partner Program where Coupa can refer businesses to Billtrust’s complete order-to-cash solution. With BPN, Coupa will enable customers to accelerate and automate electronic payments to Billtrust’s network of suppliers, distributors and vendors while scaling virtual credit card adoption.”
U.S. Bank, Payactiv Unveil New Earned Wage Access Solution for Employers | U.S. Bancorp
“U.S. Bank announced a new solution with Payactiv to bring Earned Wage Access (EWA) to U.S. Bank clients. Employees at organizations that use the prepaid U.S. Bank Focus Card for payroll disbursements can access a portion of their earned wages on-demand through an immediate direct deposit to their U.S. Bank Focus Card. The collaboration includes other payment options including an instant deposit into an employee’s checking account via Real-Time Payments (RTP).”
February 22, 2022
On the web
EXCLUSIVE U.S. Plans to Cut Ties With Targeted Russian Banks If Ukraine Is Invaded – Sources
Reuters
“President Joe Biden’s administration has prepared an initial package of sanctions against Russia that includes barring U.S. financial institutions from processing transactions for major Russian banks, three people familiar with the matter said. The measures, which would only be implemented if Russia invades Ukraine, aim to hurt the Russian economy by cutting the “correspondent” banking relationships between targeted Russian banks and U.S. banks that enable international payments.”
February 18, 2022
On the web
GoDaddy Is Letting Users Turn Their Smartphones Into a POS
TechRadar
“GoDaddy has announced it is launching into in-person payments by allowing users to turn their device into a point of sale ( POS ) device. GoDaddy’s solution is somewhat novel: unlike Square’s physical reader (which connects to an iPhone) or Apple using the iPhone’s NFC chip, GoDaddy is using QR codes and its app to let people pay merchants.”
On the wires
New Billtrust Cash Application 10.0 First to Offer 100% Electronic Remittance Capture
“Billtrust (NASDAQ: BTRS), a B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated payments leader, announces the newest version of its machine learning-driven Cash Application solution. With digital payments, non-standard remittance information and the proliferation of accounts payable (AP) portals challenging today’s accounts receivable (AR) teams, Cash Application 10.0, leveraging Billtrust’s Business Payments Network (BPN), helps suppliers accelerate revenue recognition of digital payments with faster and more accurate reconciliation of non-standard remittance information.”
February 17, 2022
On the web
Shopify Suffers Biggest Drop Ever on Slowing Growth Outlook
Bloomberg
“Shopify Inc. plunged 17% in Toronto, the most ever, after giving a weaker outlook for growth this year, as online spending resets and consumers face higher inflation. “The Covid-triggered acceleration of ecommerce that spilled into the first half of 2021 in the form of lockdowns and government stimulus will be absent from 2022,” the Canadian e-commerce firm said in a statement on Wednesday. “There is caution around inflation and consumer spend near term, for the full year.””
On the wires
Corpay One Launches Corpay Mastercard®, The Smart Card That Helps Pay Your Bills
“Corpay One, a smart digital bill pay platform for small businesses, today announced the availability of Corpay Mastercard® , its new credit card product for qualified customers. Corpay Mastercard® is fully integrated with the Corpay One bill pay platform, providing small businesses with one, subscription-free solution to make payments and manage spend.”
February 16, 2022
On the web
As Users Seek More Choices, PayNearMe Adds PayPal And Venmo To Its Bill Pay Platform
Digital Transactions
“Responding to demand from consumers and billers for digital bill-payment options, electronic billing and payment platform provider PayNearMe Inc. on Tuesday announced the addition of PayPal and Venmo to its payment options. A recent study by PayNearMe revealed that 43% of respondents rated the convenience of using PayPal to pay bills as important or very important. In addition, more than 27% of consumers cited Venmo as a preferred way to pay their bills, and 35% of Gen Zers and Millennials wanted the option of using Venmo to pay their bills.”
Coinbase Eyes Challenge to Western Union With Crypto Remittances
Bloomberg
“Coinbase Global Inc. , the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, is wading into the international money-transfer business, seeking to tap into a huge market dominated by firms like Western Union Co . Coinbase said it has launched a free pilot program for sending crypto funds to friends and family in Mexico. Receivers can convert the tokens into pesos at participating locations across the country or invest the funds into a Coinbase account. The service will become fee-based after March 31.”
On the wires
EMQ Delivers Real-Time Payments Across South Asia
“Global payments network EMQ today announced that it has significantly augmented its real-time cross-border payments across South Asia, including direct access to Nepal and India’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), with Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and additional markets in the pipeline. These major enhancements provide a more transparent and cost-efficient payments solution for our customers worldwide, while enabling them to capture new opportunities across the emerging markets.”
February 15, 2022
On the web
Standard Chartered HK Says It Has Qualified As Direct CIPS Offshore Participant
Reuters
“Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd said on Monday that it has become the first foreign bank qualified as a direct participant in China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) outside mainland China. Backed by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China launched the CIPS clearing and settlement services system in 2015 to internationalise yuan use. It allows global banks to clear cross-border yuan transactions directly onshore, instead of through clearing banks in offshore yuan hubs.”
February 11, 2022
On the wires
Spreedly Adds to Local Payment Method Offerings Via Partnership With Stripe
“Spreedly, the provider of the leading Payment Orchestration platform, today announced that it is now able to offer even more local payments methods as part of its partnership with Stripe. An effective payments strategy is built on working with the right payment partners – and offering the right payment methods. For many merchants and merchant aggregators, this includes offering customers any number of local payment methods to help reach more customers, lower transaction costs, and improve conversion rates. Payments Orchestration provides the flexibility to transact with any number of preferred gateways and payment services and allows organizations to easily add to, remove or test new options over time.”
February 10, 2022
On the web
AFP Survey Finds Major Shift to Electronic B2B Payments | Nacha
Nacha
“Evidence is mounting that businesses are increasingly moving to ACH payments and away from paper. The latest proof comes from the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) in its 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey . The survey found that 73% of organizations are now transitioning their B2B payments from checks to electronic payments. For publicly owned firms, the figure is 80%. As for motivating factors, AFP found two primary reasons that should come as no surprise to anyone in the payments industry.”
February 8, 2022
Top Post
Apple Unveils Contactless Payments Via Tap to Pay on iPhone
“Apple today announced plans to introduce Tap to Pay on iPhone. The new capability will empower millions of merchants across the US, from small businesses to large retailers, to use their iPhone to seamlessly and securely accept Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets through a simple tap to their iPhone — no additional hardware or payment terminal needed. Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers to integrate into their iOS apps and offer as a payment option to their business customers. Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to their business customers, including the Shopify Point of Sale app this spring. Additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year.”
On the wires
EMQ Strengthens Multi-currency B2B Payment Offerings to China
“Global payments network EMQ further strengthens its multi-currency B2B payment offerings for enterprises with options including same-day settlement in RMB and USD across its extensive payout network reaching over 150 banks in China. This enables EMQ’s customers to send payments to their China-based suppliers with increased certainty, efficiency and transparency, while providing direct access into one of the world’s largest trading nations.”
February 7, 2022
On the web
Zelle’s explosive growth may signal problems ahead for Venmo
Insider Intelligence
“Al Ko, CEO of Zelle’s operator, Early Warning, said the “overwhelming majority” of Zelle’s payments are P2P, but more businesses are starting to use the service: Zelle payments received by small businesses increased 162% YoY in 2021. And Zelle’s average transaction size for Q4 2021 was $272, indicating more small business payments. To further its growth in the segment, Zelle plans to roll out a QR code feature being piloted that lets users easily pay businesses.”
African Governments Now Want to Tax Your Netflix and Chill
Quartz
“Zimbabwe and Nigeria are the latest African countries to lay out plans for the collection of taxes from e-commerce and digital companies such as Netflix, Google, YouTube, and Amazon. This comes after a much criticized push by African governments to tax digital payments and mobile money usage as cash strapped governments seek to broaden revenue collection during the pandemic.”
February 4, 2022
On the web
Visa And CMI To Digitize B2B Payments in Morocco
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/
“Visa, global leader in digital payment, and digital payments manager Interbank Monetary Center (CMI) are launching a new first-of-its-kind channel for Moroccan businesses to streamline their Business to Business (B2B) money transactions.”
On the wires
Hola Cash, LatAm’s First Checkout Solution, Will Reach 1,000 Companies for 2022
“Hola Cash recently launched the first checkout solution in LatAm that combines and orchestrates all the different payment methods, prevents fraud, and powers one-click checkout with a single integration.”
February 3, 2022
On the web
PayTile Partners Cross River on Location-based Payments Platform
Finextra Research
“Cross River Bank is joining forces with fintech PayTile to deliver a peer-to-peer payments app that uses geo-location technology. Powered by Cross River, PayTile’s P2P product is aiming to bring digital payments to areas where physical cash still dominates, such as tipping a valet or shopping at the farmers market.”
On the wires
Verituity Joins BNY Mellon’s Accelerator Program to Develop Solutions to Offer Faster, Smarter, Verified Payouts
“Verituity has joined BNY Mellon’s Accelerator Program to work towards providing faster, smarter, verified payout solutions with the goal of setting a new industry standard in payments technology. BNY Mellon’s Program seeks out the best emerging technology companies around the globe and collaborates with them on next-generation solutions that will address emerging business challenges.”
February 2, 2022
On the web
Russia’s Sberbank Launches Mobile Money Transfers to China
Reuters
“Russia’s largest lender Sberbank (SBER.MM) on Tuesday said it had launched money transfers to Alipay wallets in China using phone numbers. State-controlled Sberbank, which has customers in 18 countries, launched the service together with Western Union. For a transfer fee of 1%, customers can credit an Alipay account in Chinese yuan with just the recipient’s full name and phone number.”
On the wires
Nium and FINCI Announce Partnership to Strengthen Payment Services Internationally – Nium
“Today, fintech company FINCI announced a partnership with global payments and cards issuance leader Nium , that will leverage Nium’s competitive FX rates and extensive pay-out network in strategic markets across the APAC and EMEA regions. The collaboration will enable real-time payments to new markets and improve services to existing regions for FINCI’s individual and business customers.”
February 1, 2022
On the wires
Modulr and Ripple Announce Strategic Partnership to Enable Seamless Payments Into the UK and Europe
“Today, leading payments platform Modulr announced a partnership with Ripple , the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, to enable seamless payments into the UK and Europe. Trust Payments , the global unified payments group, is the first customer to go live and begin benefiting from the partnership.”
January 31, 2022
On the wires
Paya Announces Launch of PayaGov
“Paya (NASDAQ: PAYA), a leading integrated payments and commerce solution provider, today announced the launch of PayaGov, the company’s solutions and domain experts serving government agencies, municipalities, and service providers. The launch is a key milestone in the strategic alignment of Paya’s market-leading government and municipality franchises, and reinforces Paya’s commitment to, and position in, this key vertical.”
January 28, 2022
On the web
Coupa Pay Integrates AirPlus Virtual Card Product
businesstravelnews
“Business spend management platform Coupa has reached an agreement to add AirPlus virtual cards as a payment option within the Coupa Pay payments tool. With the partnership, Coupa Pay users can generate AirPlus virtual cards, which AirPlus relaunched last year , and pay in the platform with the cards. Earlier this month, Coupa also announced a collaboration with HSBC to integrate its virtual card products into Coupa Pay.”
On the wires
InComm Payments Partners With Cuentas to Make New Transit Card Available at Hundreds of New York City Retail Locations
“InComm Payments , a leading payments technology company, today announced that it has partnered with Cuentas , Inc. (Nasdaq: CUEN & CUENW) (“Cuentas”), a leading fintech provider of mobile banking and payment solutions focused on Hispanic and Latino communities, to distribute transit cards (tap and go) at participating retail locations in New York City.”
January 27, 2022
Top Post
iPhones Will Soon Accept Contactless Payments Directly, Says Report
The Verge
“Small businesses will soon be able to use iPhones to accept payments without the need for Square-style extra hardware, according to a Bloomberg report . The feature has been anticipated since Apple bought contactless payment startup Mobeewave in 2020, and Bloomberg now says it could be coming via a software update “in the coming months.” Mobeewave previously worked with Samsung on similar NFC functionality, trialling a system called Samsung POS in the startup’s home country of Canada in 2019 before launching it worldwide. Samsung POS enabled Samsung phones to accept payments directly from contactless cards and NFC payment services like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay.”
On the web
Chuck, Small Banks’ Answer to Zelle, Goes Live
American Banker
“Adopting Zelle was never a consideration for Reading Cooperative. Industry observers say Zelle — owned by several large banks — charges banks 45 cents to 90 cents per transaction with low-volume, smaller financial institutions paying the higher fees. Chuck enables users to initiate P2P payments through a variety of methods the bank chooses, from ACH to Venmo — with plans to eventually add FedNow — for half or less of the per-transaction cost of Zelle, Chuck’s participants say. FedNow, set to roll out in 2023, is a new instant payments service the Federal Reserve Banks are developing.”
January 26, 2022
On the wires
EMQ Accelerates Real-time Cross-border Payments Across Europe to Support Global Enterprises
“Global payments network EMQ deepens its reach across Europe by adding SEPA instant credit transfer (SCT Inst) capabilities to its network. This major enhancement further extends EMQ’s network infrastructure into the high-growth markets in the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) zone, and enables global enterprises to send funds instantly in euros to a wider set of beneficiary accounts in Europe.”
Payments News
Give us your email address or link to our RSS feed and we’ll push the daily Payments News headlines to you.
Top Stories from Payments News
Glenbrook Payments Boot camp®
Register for the next Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp®
An intensive and comprehensive overview of the payments industry.
Train your Team
Customized, private Payments Boot Camps tailored to meet your team’s unique needs.
OnDemand Modules
Recorded, one-hour videos covering a broad array of payments concepts.
Glenbrook Press
Comprehensive books that detail the systems and innovations shaping the payments industry.