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01.17.17: Your morning briefing
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:
Amazon’s dominance: Just how big is Amazon? Larger than the most recognizable big box chains put together. Seeking Alpha reports Amazon's market value at the end of 2016 was $356 billion, compared to $297 billion for Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Kohl's, Nordstrom, JCPenney and Sears combined. And Walmart, at $212 billion in market value, is by far the largest brick and mortar chain, meaning Amazon is dwarfing almost all other chains except for Walmart. Seeking Alpha also reports that all of these major retail chains have lost value over the past decade, as Amazon has increased value over that time. Given Amazon's recent moves to pair its e-commerce model with more traditional brick and mortar models, the chain stores are likely to feel more pressure from the e-commerce giant in the near future.
A student is reflected in the window of an Amazon.com Inc. kiosk on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016. By the end of the year, Amazon will have staffed pickup kiosks serving more than 500,000 college students at 16 schools around the country. Students order items from Amazon.com Inc. and retrieve them from new pickup lockers. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Intel makes a play for retail tech: Retail shopping could get a boost from Intel, which is investing $100 million to develop new in-store technology. Engadget reports Intel's Responsive Retail Platform will build a common set of sensors, software kits and other components to speed inventory tracking, feedback for buying habits and personalized marketing. Some of the work will be consolidation--this type of technology is already available, but retailers have to pull separate solutions together, according to Engadget. In other cases, Intel will develop off of technology that keeps tabs on store shelves, or other software that gives retailers a virtual preview of store layouts. Retailers have been slowly adding technology such as Bluetooth Low Energy for marketing and to "check in" consumers in shopping mall environments.
Paper to virtual: India's lightning fast money migration could take it from paper money to blockchain-powered digital money in just a few months. A government research report recommends India's central bank should begin work on a digital currency as part of a broader roadmap for blockchain usage in financial services. The other potential benefits include centralized "know your customer" anti-money laundering, cross-border payments, syndicated loans, trade finance and capital markets. The Indian government is also encouraging payment startups through a streamlined banking license that includes savings accounts but not lending, a measure Airtel has taken advantage of to launch a mobile payments scheme.
Blocksavings: Companies aren't expected to reap the benefits of blockchain in the near term, but their timeframe may turn out to be shorter than originally thought. Blockchain could reap huge savings, as much as $110 billion for the global financial services industry over the next three years, reports Finextra, citing data from McKinsey, which adds the technology will be widely adopted in the next five years. The biggest beneficiary will be cross-border business to business payments, with other areas such as P-to-P, repo transactions, derivative settlement, anti-money laundering and ID fraud are also expected to see big savings.
Google Assistant might soon let you make payments The Next Web • Abhimanyu Ghoshal A teardown of a new beta version of the official Google App for Android – which includes the company’s Assistant service – by the folks at XDA Developers reveals that you might soon be able to make payments using the AI-powered bot...
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Mastercard's tech for African farmers plants seeds of financial inclusion Mastercard is launching a mobile payment platform to help farmers be more aware of the needs for produce sales in East Africa, calling it the first use case from technology developed at Mastercard Labs in Nairobi, Kenya, which opened in 2014.
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9 unorthodox reward programs Bigger isn't always better; as card issuers compete to bring in more spending, many are rethinking the way they offer rewards. Some of their approaches focus on streamlining redemption, while others dabble with cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality.
First Data makes its pitch to tech developers Technology developers are both the stars and the target audience for payment companies looking to be on the right side of the industry's mobile-driven future.
Citigroup is on a quest to modernize its global payments stack and be the go-to financial institution for cross-border payments and international corporations. Debopama Sen, head of payments at Citi's Services business, spoke with American Banker about the divisions' progress since its Services Investor Day in June 2024.
The Cincinnati bank aims to grow in northeast Ohio with the acquisition of Westfield. The deal is expected to boost First Financial to a $20.6 billion institution.
House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill, R-Ark., declined to say whether he would pass the Senate's GENIUS Act without making his own changes, as President Trump has preferred.
Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. has applied for an industrial loan company charter, joining General Motors and Ford in hoping for better prospects for approval under the Trump administration.
Barely two years after adopting a bank charter, NewtekOne in Florida plans to expand beyond its roots as an SBA 7(a) lender by growing its alternative loan program.
