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Welcome to the new PaymentsSource Morning Briefing, delivered daily. The information you need to start your day, including top headlines from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
U.K. watchdog barks at Mastercard: Mastercard's $920 million acquisition of British payment company VocaLink is under fire, as the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority contends the deal will give the card network an unfair advantage in ATM-related negotiations. VocaLink provides software for the Link ATM network, which covers about 70,000 machines in the U.K. and Europe. The CMA is worried this will result in reduced bidders for future contracts, since the combined Mastercard/VocaLink will leave only Visa as a viable competitor. "The Link ATM network provides an essential service for millions of customers," said Andrea Coscelli, CMA's acting chief, in a release. "It's important that Link has a good choice of providers when it comes to supplying the necessary infrastructure so it can take advantage of the opening up of payment systems to competition." VocaLink also powers Bacs, the clearinghouse that processes most of the U.K.'s government salaries and benefits.The CMA has given Mastercard and VocaLink until Jan. 11 to address its concerns. In a statement, Mastercard said "the CMA noted that it has no concerns related to providing infrastructure services to Bacs or the Faster Payments Service. We're pleased to have the opportunity to address their one concern, regarding the Link ATM scheme, in the timeframe provided. This acquisition promises to bring greater choice and innovation to the payment ecosystem, enabling people, governments and business to pay the way they want to pay."
Muenster, Germany - April 9, 2011: A close up macro shot of a Mastercard credit card. Mastercard is one of the biggest credit card companies in the world.
Samsung's 'smart' refrigerators multiply: Samsung made a splash in 2016 with its WiFi refrigerators, luring partners such as Mastercard and FreshDirect, who were attracted to the appliance's ability to order pay for online grocery orders. Samsung plans to up its game this year with six new web connected refrigerators, for a total of ten models. Engadget reports the new refrigerators will come in three-door, four-door and four-door flex models with dual freezers. The technology guts are also getting a makeover, as Samsung updates the operating system to Family Hub 2.0, including a new 21.5-inch LED interface that allows everyone in the house to have a profile along with avatars, photo-sharing, calendars and memos. Engadget also reports the new models will use voice recognition technology, and can run apps such as Spotify, GrubHub and Glympse.
Face and fingers: Sensor company Synaptics has developed a way to combine fingerprint biometrics—a widely used method to secure ID for mobile transactions—with facial recognition, an alternative method that's also rapidly catching on. The Verge reports the Synaptics' method would make fingerprint and facial recognition interchangeable and avoid some hardware work at the same time. Synaptics is incorporating facial recognition processing into the same hardware as the fingerprint sensor, and is integrating the mobile device's built-in camera. Since most smartphones already include fingerprint readers, this new technology will enable an easier upgrade to facial recognition by requiring less new hardware, The Verge reports.
Get vocal: Voice recognition technology deployments are popping up all over payments and financial services, and these early adopters may be in position to catch the worm. Gartner reports momentum for voice recognition function and increasing consumer comfort. Though it does not have formal forecasts for the technology, it notes consumers are actively seeking to use this technology, along with other emerging functions such as virtual personal assistants, attributing the trend to a "fresher user experience." The research firm says this trend comes amid relatively flat growth for more "traditional" consumer gadgetry, as it projects the global shipments of PCs, tablets, and mobile devices will total 2.3 billion in 2017, the same as 2016, with no growth in traditional devices expected until 2018.
Yes Bank upbeat on using blockchain, to add more processes The Economic Times of India The bank will now look at deploying the same supply- chain financing solutions with more clients and is also keen on leveraging the benefits of blockchain solution.
Where should Trump start on China trade policy? Visa and Mastercard President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he wants to impose 45% retaliatory tariffs on China and other trading partners if they cheat on their obligations. To find examples of cheating, he could do worse than to look at China's payment card market.
Four ways the GOP could roll back Dodd-Frank in 2017 WASHINGTON — Since the Dodd-Frank Act was passed in 2010, bank industry representatives have confidently predicted that the next year would bring significant changes, only to see their hopes dashed amid partisan divisions over proposed fixes. Until now.
Alipay’s next stop: Korea? Ant Financial, parent of the Chinese online payment giant Alipay, may soon expand to South Korea with a new service called Korea Pay.
The Federal Reserve governor's term was set to expire in January and President Donald Trump has made it clear that she would not be reappointed. The vacancy will give Trump an opportunity to appoint someone new to the central bank's board.
Direct-to-consumer earned wage access provider EarnIn is rolling out Live Pay, a service that "streams" consumers' paychecks via a Visa card. It's a model banks could replicate.
Columbus-based Northwest Bancshares finalized its acquisition of Penns Woods Bancorp; Barclays becomes the second U.K.-based bank to leave the Zero Banking Alliance; BankUnited announces the appointment of Michael Mitchell as executive vice president, director of branch banking; and more in this week's banking news roundup.
First Foundation is in transformation mode, after a capital infusion and new management gave it some power to remix its challenged balance sheet. But the bank just took its third quarterly loss out of the last four quarters.
The Cleveland bank is working with Personetics to provide advice and help to digital banking customers that takes into account their circumstances, current transactions and history.
