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Blockchain payments make a big splash at Wells, CBA: Blockchain's role in revolutionizing international payments has taken a big step, as Wells Fargo and Commonwealth Bank of Australia used the technology to complete a transaction for the shipment of goods across borders.The transaction was a shipment of cotton from Texas to Qingdao, China, and used a private distributed ledger between the buyer, seller and their banks, Reuters reports. The $35,000 transaction also included an "Internet of Things" supply chain monitor to confirm geographic location of the goods in transit before sending a notification for the release of payment. Wells Fargo has also collaborated with ANZ, another Australian bank, on a proof of concept for a shared distributed ledger platform to improve speed for cross-border bank payment reconciliation and settlement.
Hackers hit PayPal, NYT, other big sites: The security intelligence company Flashpoint says it's figured out the cause of Friday's major internet outage that took down a bunch of websites, including PayPal. According to a report in the technology site Engadget that included Flashpoint as a source, the outage was enabled by a Mirai botnet that hacked into connected home devices. The botnet targeted Dyn, a large domain name server, with a distributed denial of service attack, in which hackers hurl a huge amount of traffic at websites to overwhelm them. In addition to PayPal, Friday's attack took down Twitter, Spotify, Reddit and The New York Times. Mirai is a well-known hacking tool--security blogger Brian Krebs' site was hit in late September--and the relatively weak security protocols of 'Internet of Things' devices makes the web connected devices particularly vulnerable, according to Engadget. That's something that payment companies should consider as web connected devices are outfitted with payment capabilities.
Old-school wallets wane in the U.K.: The U.K.'s quick embrace of emerging payments methods is having an impact on cash. On average, U.K. residents have less than $8 in cash on them at a given time, according to The Telegraph, which cites data from Mastercard. The card network also reports 43% of people in the U.K. say they keep less hard cash in their pockets or wallets than a year ago; and the number of card transactions has increased by more than 9% each year since 2013, totalling 17 billion transactions in the U.K. in 2015. Additionally, 10% of the British population has stopped carrying a wallet or purse, instead carrying a credit or debit card in their pockets; and 24% wish to stop carrying a wallet or purse.
Millennials need new ID: Mobile abandonment is a big problem for millennials, and a forgotten password is usually the reason. More than 93% of millennials surveyed by Jumio say they have abandoned an application for a credit card or other product, with forgotten passwords being the primary challenge. That places pressure on financial institutions to come up with alternatives to traditional usernames and passwords for mobile payments, banking and other digital accounts, since millennials also overwhelmingly use these channels. The same Jumio survey also found 92% of millennials use mobile more for financial services than any other activity, including shopping. The survey also reports millennial buying power will reach $1.4 trillion by 2020.
From the Web (powered by Wiser)
Apple Pay Could Be Making Its Way To Germany Soon
Ubergizmo • Tyler Lee
Due to the fact that we’re talking about money and the security of credit cards, it is possible that could be the reason why mobile payment systems aren’t taking off quite as quickly as many would like.
Apple Pay's tenuous role in a cashless society
Mobilepaymentstoday.com • Will Hernandez
Mobile Payments Today Editor Will Hernandez examines Tim Cook's recent comment about a cashless society and mobile payments.
PayPal Is A Must-Own Stock
Seeking Alpha • Adelphi Venture Capital
Summary Another strong quarter from PayPal saw total payment volume increase at a strong rate. We think the rise of online shopping will be the catalyst to solid long-term growth. Growing active accounts and rising transactions are a perfect mix. We think...
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