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Watch The BRIT Awards 2018 International Live Stream I Edition

February 18, 2018

19 min read

Payments Spectrum™
– Keep Rocking

Sunday, 18 February | 7 Pages

Watch The BRIT Awards 2018 International Live Stream
You won’t want to miss amazing performances from Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Foo Fighters, Jorja Smith, Justin Timberlake, Rag’n’Bone Man, Rita Ora, Sam Smith and Stormzy!
Watch The BRITs 2018 live on 21 February at 8pm GMT: http://smarturl.it/BRITs2018. If you’re outside of the UK, join Conor Maynard and Yasmin Evans on YouTube! For you fans in the UK, watch on ITV!

NEWS FROM THE WEB

Zomato raises $200 million from Ant Financials
The funding includes a $50 million secondary share sale by Zomato shareholder Info Edge to Ant Financials, which will dilute its stake in Zomato to about 30.91% post the fresh capital infusion. Bengaluru: Food ordering and restaurant discovery platform Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd has raised $200 million from Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group, valuing the company at about $1.1 billion. The funding includes a $50 million secondary share sale by Zomato’s key shareholder Info Edge (India) Ltd to Ant Financials, which will dilute its stake in Zomato to about 30.91% post the fresh capital infusion, the firm informed BSE on Thursday evening. The primary and secondary sale of shares values Gurugram-based Zomato at about $880 million pre-money, according to the statement filed by Info Edge that runs job portal Naukri. Ant Financial is the payments business connected with China’s largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Shrutika Verma
livemint
Feb 02 2018. 05 50 PM IST

How WeChat came to rule China.
The multipurpose messaging app is becoming the nation’s ID system. China’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, has always had a close relationship with the Chinese government. The app has been subsidized by the government since its creation in 2011, and it’s an accepted reality that officials censor and monitor users. Now, WeChat is poised to take on an even greater role: an initiative is underway to integrate WeChat with China’s electronic ID system.

It may be hard for people outside of China to grasp just how influential WeChat has become there. “For all intents and purposes WeChat is your phone, and to a far greater extent in China than anywhere else, your phone is everything,” wrote Ben Thompson, analyst and founder of the blog Stratechery. “There is nothing in any other country that is comparable: not LINE, not WhatsApp, not Facebook.”

By Shannon Liao
The Verge
Feb 1, 2018, 10:43am EST

EBay is ditching PayPal for a younger, European partner
EBay is shifting its payment operations from PayPal, pushing apart two companies whose fortunes have been intertwined since the dot-com boom in the 1990s. The breakup highlights the rise of a new generation of financial technology companies.
EBay said it will eventually replace PayPal with a Dutch firm called Adyen as its primary payment processor, more closely integrating payments on its site. The online marketplace expects to have mostly completed the move by 2021, and PayPal will still be offered as a way to pay at checkout until July 2023. The auction site said “PayPal will remain an important partner to eBay,” which is the equivalent of “let’s be friends” in the corporate world (Adyen is about half PayPal’s age).

John Detrixhe
Quartz
February 01, 2018

Alibaba to Buy a Third of Ant Financial, Paving Way for IPO
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will buy 33 percent of Ant Financial, helping to clear the way for an initial public offering of the Chinese payments giant.
China’s biggest e-commerce operator will acquire new shares in its finance affiliate in exchange for certain intellectual property rights, the company said Thursday. While no cash is changing hands, Ant Financial will end royalty payments to Alibaba that were worth more than $300 million last fiscal year. Alibaba also raised its annual forecast after posting third-quarter sales that topped estimates.
Alibaba hasn’t held a stake in the owner of Alipay since founder Jack Ma controversially spun out the business in 2011. Ant Financial has had a string of recent setbacks, with its U.S. expansion thwarted by the collapse of a deal for MoneyGram International Inc. while its Chinese business faces greater scrutiny from regulators and increased competition from Tencent Holdings Ltd.

By Lulu Chen
Bloomberg Technology
February 1, 2018

PayPal Forecast Falls Short of Estimates
PayPal Holdings Inc. issued a forecast that didn’t meet Wall Street’s expectations, signaling struggles ahead as it looks to compete with banks and startups in the online payments market. For this year’s earnings, the San Jose, California-based company projected net revenue will rise to between $15 billion and $15.25 billion, compared with the average analyst estimate of $15.26 billion. The forecast for the current quarter is about in line with what analysts expect. Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman has been making a push for PayPal to become a versatile financial tool, rather than just a payment button on a website, and expand access across the financial services industry. But competition is strong from startups and incumbents alike. Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank Group Corp. is reportedly planning to create a digital payments system, and large U.S. banks are spending millions to ramp up their own digital offering, Zelle.

By Julie Verhage
Bloomberg Technology
February 1, 2018

Bass Pro Shops & Cabela’s Select Mastercard as Network Partner for Combined Co-Brand Portfolio
Partnership to expand world-class service, cardholder benefits and support a unified focus on conservation and the outdoors.
PURCHASE, NY & SPRINGFIELD, Mo.– February 1, 2018 – Mastercard announced today that Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s has chosen the company to be the network for the outdoor retailer’s combined consumer credit co-brand portfolio. Mastercard has long been the network on the Bass Pro Shops co-brand program. Under this new partnership, the Cabela’s CLUB credit card business will convert to Mastercard, unifying North America’s premier outdoor and conservation company’s portfolios under a single network with opportunities to make conservation an important component of the CLUB’s mission going forward. Cabela’s “Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s customers are strong supporters of the outdoors and conservation. We are excited to partner with a company like Mastercard that shares in these passions,” said Johnny Morris, Bass Pro founder and CEO. “Our partnership with Mastercard will allow us to bring Priceless experiences to our loyal customers and unite sportsmen and women together to collectively advance conservation.”

Press Releases
mastercard newsroom
February 1, 2018

Sage Payment Solutions Announces Company Rebrand to Paya
New Brand Reflects Executive Leadership’s Plans to Focus on Fintech Innovation and Channel Partner Expansion. RESTON, Va., Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Sage Payment Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of integrated payment processing and business solutions in North America, announces that beginning today, the company will operate under the new brand name of Paya (pronounced pie-ya). The new corporate name for the longtime trusted solutions provider signals a tectonic shift in the company’s vision and strategy in the fintech market.
“The Paya name represents the fresh and progressive company we are building for our employees, partners, and customers as we work to become the foremost technology platform helping companies run their businesses better,” said Joe Kaplan, Paya CEO. “We are creating something special and compelling here. Our mission is to deliver new technologies to the market and offer innovative, integrated payment solutions that will help our customers simplify business complexity and concentrate on growing their business.”

NEWS PROVIDED BY Paya
PR Newswire
Jan 30, 2018, 07:00 ET

Apple Pay accepted at 1 out of 2 U.S. stores, says Apple VP Jennifer Bailey
Speaking at NRF 2018 Retail’s Big Show in New York earlier this month, Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey presented a speech detailing how iPhone changed the retail landscape, and outlined the tech company’s ongoing efforts in the mobile payment marketplace.
Addressing conference attendees in a speech entitled “The Modern Shopping Experience,” Bailey presented a few interesting tidbits relating to Apple Pay growth and adoption, as well as insight into Apple’s current and future ambitions for mobile payments services, reports CNET Japan. Led by iPhone, mobile is doing more to revolutionize e-commerce than any other platform, Bailey said. Purchases made on smartphones and tablets account for 25 percent of e-commerce transactions in the U.S. The rate of growth for mobile transactions is four times that of desktop, and 10 times that of traditional brick and mortar retail. The same phenomenon is occurring outside the U.S. China, for example, sees 80 percent of its e-commerce transactions performed on mobile devices.

By AppleInsider Staff
AppleInsider
Monday, January 29, 2018

ING further invests in payments business with acquisition of majority stake in Payvision
ING has reached an agreement to acquire a 75% stake in Payvision, a fast-growing, leading international omnichannel payments service provider. Payvision has a total value of EUR 360 million. The transaction will enable ING to strengthen its footprint in omnichannel payments services and expand its merchant services for its business customers, in particular in the fast-growing e-commerce segment. The transaction with Payvision is the latest investment in innovative financial services to support ING’s Think Forward strategy. Customers will strongly benefit from Payvision’s omnichannel payments platform complemented by ING’s lending and working capital solutions and its worldwide distribution network. By offering Payvision’s solution, our business customers will be able to accept payments through any channel, including in store terminals and web shops and through any device. Payvision’s platform facilitates more than 80 payment methods, including Maestro, Visa, iDEAL, Alipay, JCB and Union Pay across more than 150 currencies. Consumers can benefit from increased choice in payment solutions and a convenient, seamless and uniform shopping experience.

Carolien van der Giessen
Press officer
ING Newsroom
Amsterdam, 29 January 2018

RPT-What’s Zelle? Banks hope commercials get customers to notice the app
NEW YORK, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Big U.S. banks are spending millions of dollars to promote Zelle, their digital payment service, by running commercials on major sports games and entertainment shows, as well as a YouTube campaign painting the app as simple and ubiquitous. The ads reflect a two-pronged effort by banks, industry insiders said: to wean customers from costly physical services like paper checks and branches, and gains on Venmo, a better-known payments app offered by PayPal Holdings Inc . Venmo, launched in 2009, became popular among the coveted millennial demographic, primarily through word of mouth.
Zelle broke onto the scene less than a year ago after the big banks haggled over marketing and computer networking arrangements for a decade. Zelle is now in the hands of many more people than Venmo, and the network already processes more than twice as much in payments, as measured by dollar volume. But its brand recognition is low.

By David Henry
REUTERS
JANUARY 29, 2018 / 5:31 PM

Japan’s SoftBank hatches plan to take on PayPal
Japanese tech investor plots global payments network. SoftBank, the Japanese technology colossus, is studying an audacious plan to create a global digital payments system that could take on PayPal, Apple Pay and China’s Alipay.
The investment giant — led by maverick billionaire dealmaker Masayoshi Son — has evolved into the world’s most aggressive investor in new technologies. Its $100bn (£70bn) Vision Fund, a partnership with the government of Saudi Arabia, has started to hoover up many of the most promising tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. It bought British chip designer Arm Holdings for £24bn in 2016.

Ben Harrington
The Sunday Times
January 28 2018, 12:01am

Starbucks places a downpayment on a Blockchain vision
Starbucks took a long term bet on digital a long time ago. Now attention is turning to the future of payment tech, including securing a role as a trust legitimiser for Blockchain.
The ubiquity of mobile and credit card payment is enabling us to begin an exploration of cashless stores in the US. We expect payment methods will continue to evolve with acceptance increasingly becoming the global currency of the future.Building on partnerships with companies like Chase, Tencent, Alibaba and others, enables us to explore new ideas that leverage our digital assets, global retail footprint and global customer base with the digital payment platforms of today, while also monitoring the landscape of potential payment platforms of the future.Through our Rewards program, we continue to drive increases in per member spend by leveraging personalized offerings and suggested selling to our customers. By expanding capacity at peak, we have now the ability to offer Mobile Order and Pay to our non-Rewards customers and will begin accelerating the ramp up of Mobile Order and Pay to all customers beginning in March. We are accelerating our marketing engagement to expand digital customer relationships.

By Stuart Lauchlan
Diginomica
January 26, 2018

Square Acquires Entrees On-Trays, Expanding Its Caviar Footprint in Dallas-Fort Worth
SAN FRANCISCO & FORT WORTH, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) announced today that it has acquired certain assets of Entrees On-Trays, a premier restaurant delivery service that has served the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex since 1986. Square now welcomes to Caviar, its food ordering platform, dozens of the region’s most popular restaurants, including: Esperanza’s, part of Joe T. Garcia’s legendary family of Tex-Mex restaurants; Terra Mediterranean, classic, authentic dishes featuring staples of the Mediterranean diet; Chick-fil-A, the ultimate in craveable chicken sandwiches; and Riscky’s Bar-B-Q: famous local Texas barbeque, family owned since 1927. For more than three decades, Entrees On-Trays has been known for its service and hospitality to restaurants, couriers, and customers alike in Fort Worth, sharing Caviar’s ethos about partnering with the best restaurants and powering fast delivery to diners. Entrees On-Trays has also served as a corporate catering partner to major employers in the greater Fort Worth area, which Caviar will continue with Caviar for Teams, its corporate and group ordering product.

Square, Inc.
BusinessWire
January 25, 2018

Tender Armor Secures ‘Series A’ Investment to Prevent the Pain of Payment Fraud for Financial Institutions and Cardholders
Multi-Million-Dollar Investment Will Accelerate Company Growth and Advance the Development of its CVV+ FinTech Solution.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tender Armor, LLC, a global fraud prevention payments technology provider, today announced the closing of a multi-million-dollar Series A investment led by private investors Aubrey Strul and Barry Beck, with additional funding through Strul Logistics and Technology LLC. The Series A round enables Tender Armor to drive new business and product innovation, expand its workforce, and meet increasing demand by financial institutions for its multi-patent-pending CVV+ solution. The CVV+ solution addresses the growing threat of card-not-present (CNP) fraud and the consumer worries it creates. Fraudulent CNP charges cause undue stress to cardholders while burdening them with repairing the damage. It also results in significant losses for financial institutions such as replacement card costs, countless lost purchase dollars, and perhaps most painful, customer attrition. CVV+ works to prevent fraud from occurring before it happens, unlike other solutions that don’t detect fraud until the transaction is being processed.

Tender Armor, LLC
BusinessWire
January 25, 2018

2018 Thales Data Threat Report: 94% of organizations using cloud, IoT and other transformative technologies, data breaches at all-time high
As businesses embrace new environments, data breaches have become the new reality.
SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data security, announces the results of its 2018 Thales Data Threat Report, Global Edition, issued in conjunction with analyst firm 451 Research. The report finds digitally transformative technologies are shaping the way organizations do business and moving them to a data-driven world, with 94% of organizations using sensitive data in cloud, big data, IoT, container, blockchain and/or mobile environments.

Thales
PR Newswire
Jan 25, 2018, 03:00 ET

Israel Becomes the First Middle-East Country with Merchants Accepting Alipay to Welcome Chinese Tourists
Diamond Mines, Caprice, Ahava cosmetics and others are among the first businesses in the Middle East to offer instore payments with Alipay’s digital wallet.
TEL AVIV, Israel–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Israel Credit Card (ICC, CAL) and OneBill have announced they will be cooperating with Chinese payment market leader Alipay to facilitate payments for Chinese visitors to Israel. The availability of Alipay means Israel becomes the first country in the Middle East in which it can be used for instore payments. This follows Alipay’s extensive international expansion in recent years. The service is available for Chinese tourists and business travelers visiting Israel. Israeli businesses are showing great interest in the economic benefits of Chinese tourism, and many have already announced they will enable payments through Alipay. National Airline El-Al and James Richardson Duty Free chain stores will soon accept Alipay, with Diamond Mines prestigious jewelry chain stores launching Alipay powered payments last week.According to information received from the Ministry of Tourism and the Israel-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the volume of Chinese arrivals to Israel increased 45% year-on-year in 2017. Last year, over 123,000 Chinese tourists visited Israel. The typical Chinese tourist visits Israel for an average period of 9 days, during which each tourist spends approximately $300 daily.

Ms. Xinyun Yang
Alipay PR
BusinessWire
January 24, 2018

CBE issues standard criteria for accepting electronic payment using QR Code
Standard criteria is a new step towards digital economy and contributing to the faster and more secure provision of financial services to all citizens at a lower cost, says Helal. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has issued electronic acceptance criteria for payments through QR Code, an easy and secure way to implement and accept payments electronically without the need for traditional POS devices.
According to CBE; these unified standards will apply to all banks licensed to accept payments electronically in Egypt.
The new technology will allow the trader and consumer to carry out electronic payment and collection for goods and services by scanning the QR code that the merchant displays visibly to their customers. The merchant data is, then shown and the customer enters the amount to be paid on mobile phone to pay directly to the merchant’s account. An immediate notice is then sent to both parties to complete the process.
According to Lobna Helal, CBE deputy governor, this step comes within the framework of CBE’s strategy to regulate the collection of financial transactions electronically without carrying and circulation of banknotes, as part of the plan to shift to a future without cash transactions.
“These standards are in line with the latest in the world and help to support and stimulate electronic payment services provided by all banks licensed by CBE for electronic payments,” she added.

Hossam Mounir
Daily News Egypt
January 24, 2018

New PCI Software-Based PIN Entry on COTS Standard
The PCI SSC has announced a new PCI Security Standard for software-based PIN entry on commercial off-the-shelf devices (COTS), such as smartphones and tablets. The PCI Software-Based PIN Entry (SPoC) Standard provides a software-based approach for protecting PIN entry on the wide variety of COTS devices in the market today. The security requirements are for solution providers to use in developing secure solutions that enable EMV contact and contactless transactions with PIN entry on the merchant’s consumer device using a secure PIN entry application in combination with a Secure Card Reader for PIN (SCRP). Here we talk with PCI SSC Chief Technology Officer Troy Leach about the new standard, what makes it different than other PCI PIN Standards, and how it’s designed to secure payment data.

By Laura K. Gray
PCI Security Standards Council
24 JAN, 2018

Tencent may invest in Carrefour China as internet giants extend retail war
Tencent may invest in Carrefour’s China unit with Yonghui as the French retailer attempts to stem a decline in sales. Tencent Holdings, China’s biggest internet company, may jointly invest in French retail giant Carrefour’s struggling Chinese operations with supermarket operator Yonghui Superstores, as part of a broader strategic partnership to boost the bricks-and-mortar business through the use of data analysis and mobile payments.“The potential investment will leverage Carrefour’s global retail knowledge with Tencent’s technological excellence and Yonghui’s operational know-how and in particular its deep knowledge of fresh products.” Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based retailer Carrefour said in a release, without saying how much the investment will be. Carrefour has also agreed to explore a partnership with Tencent in which the Shenzhen-based company will lend its digital expertise, according to the statement. Carrefour will remain the largest shareholder of the China unit, it said.

Jane Li
South China Morning Post
Tuesday, 23 January, 2018

Biometric identification must be made available for all Mastercard users by April 2019
Banks will offer biometric tools to cardholders as part of the Mastercard’s continued efforts to improve secure shopping.
LONDON, 23rd January 2018 – Mastercard announced today that all consumers will be able to identify themselves with biometrics such as fingerprints or facial recognition, when they shop and pay with Mastercard by April next year. In practice it means that banks issuing Mastercard-branded cards will have to be able to offer biometric authentication for remote transactions, alongside existing PIN and password verification. It will also apply to all contactless transactions made at terminals with a mobile device. The increased availability of biometric capabilities on tablets and smart phones – consumers’ clear preference for these kind of solutions – and the EU’s new regulatory requirements for strong authentication suggest that the time is ripe for enabling biometric validation solutions for digital payments.

Press Releases
Mastercard Newsroom
23rd January 2018

Bolt Launches First All-in-One Payments Platform with Amazon-like Checkout and Zero-Fraud Guarantee
Eliminating merchants’ need for layered solutions, Bolt’s highly-optimized all-in-one payments stack boosts customer lifetime value and increases revenue.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Aiming to re-engineer ecommerce for all online retail merchants and consumers, Bolt (https://bolt.com/) launched today after operating in stealth for a year with over 100 large online merchants already validating its product. The first truly all-in-one payments platform, Bolt bridges the gaps between several siloed products in the market. Online retailers are losing thousands of customers and billions in revenue every year because current payment systems are highly fragmented, requiring the integration of checkout, payment, and fraud detection systems in a layered construct. Bolt’s highly-optimized checkout solution generates 10%-50% more revenue for every ecommerce company that installs it, and because Bolt provides end-to-end payment processing, data collected across the stack can be used to train superior fraud detection algorithms. With far lower fraud rates, Bolt is able to cover all fraud.