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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:
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Target pulls the plug on retail experiments: Target's worse-than-expected holiday season has led the big box retailer to shutter two innovation projects designed to counter Amazon initiatives such as its Go checkoutless store. ReCode reports Target is axing its "Store of the Future," which was a smaller store that would combine a warehouse and a showroom, with robots picking items for consumers at checkout. The store was also supposed to integrate Target's e-commerce platform and have space for classes and other social activities. The Store of the Future was expected to open this year, ReCode reports. The other project, Goldfish, was a software platform that Target would eventually use to allow other retailers to list goods for sale. The project's leader, former PayPal and BigCommerce exec West Stringfellow, told ReCode's sources and the Minneapolis Star Tribune he and his team have been let go and the project, slated for launch next month, has been scuttled.
Target Corp. signage is seen on a shopping cart and the exterior of a company store in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, May 16, 2016. Target is scheduled to release earnings figured on May 18. Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
Marathon payments: companies like Apple have made charitable giving a gateway to mobile payments adoption, addressing the difficulty of collecting cash at live events. To improve donation performance at the London Marathon, Virgin Money is collaborating with WorldPay to rollout a new online payments platform for the marathon, which Virgin sponsors. Virgin was seeking to manage spikes in donations that occur shortly before the marathon, and has also redesigned the user experience for the donation website to reduce navigation and enable faster checkouts.The new site will also extend to Virgin Money Giving's other non profit clients, which total more than 100,000 fundraisers per year.
Data sharing standards advance in the U.K.: Data sharing is often the subject of disputes between established financial services companies and startups, as well as complex deals such as the truces between PayPal and the card networks. In the U.K. and other parts of Europe, data sharing has become a source of confusion for banks and startups alike, and governments are starting to step in. Finextra reports the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority has given the country's nine largest banks a year to adopt an open API for data sharing. The order is an attempt to make the country more open to competitive technology development from financial services startups, setting a timetable to build standards for open banking, overdraft fee policies, account opening and service quality.
Worldpay lures Santander Exec: Worldpay has enticed Santander's head of global innovation Peter Jackson to be its new U.K. chief executive. Sky News reports Jackson will join Worldpay on March 1, and will replace Peter Hobday, who left Worldpay in December for technology company RAC. Jackson, who earlier in his career was chief executive of Travelex and has also held positions at Lloyds and Halifax Bank of Scotland, will report to Philip Jansen, Worldpay's group CEO. Worldpay's founder, Nick Ogden, recently announced plans to launch ClearBank, a U.K.-based challenger bank serving small businesses and startups, and has received a banking license in the U.K.
3 success factors behind airlines and their mobile payments strategies Mobilepaymentstoday.com • Kristian Gjerding As airline passengers increasingly turn to smartphones and other mobile devices to book and manage their flights and related travel arrangements, airlines have the opportunity for significant new revenues.
Waud's $100 million investment in fintech's future The wave of technology that's turned card swipes into dips, phones into wallets, sunglasses into payment devices and micro merchants into international sellers will not only continue, but proliferate, according to Andrew Rueff, a long-time payment industry veteran who's turning his focus to finding and funding the next revolution.
'Stale' e-payment and shopping models are sinking retailers Retailers who seek to thrive in the digital world must stay ahead of the digital curve in order to compensate for the terrifying reality of the retail industry’s outdated and inefficient business model of opening more stores to expand physical footprints.
John Adams is executive editor of payments for American Banker. John interviews top executives in the payments, cryptocurrency and fintech... Read full bio
The Federal Communications Commission proposed a $4.5 million fine against Voxbeam Telecommunications, which it accused of facilitating fraud scams. Many of the calls spoofed phone numbers belonging to American banks.
After French authorities stopped a bomb plot against a Bank of America office in Paris, security experts warned banks to step up their preparations for terror attacks.
