10.26.16: Your morning briefing

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

10.26.16: Your morning briefing
The information you need to start your day, including top headlines from PaymentsSource and around the Web. In today's briefing:

Is the Apple Pay revolution finally here?: While Apple's had an undeniable impact on mobile commerce, there' still been a less than full embrace of Apple Pay, particularly given the mobile wallet's hype. But there are finally signs that the tepid adoption may be turning a corner. Apple Pay's transactions jumped 500% year over year, the company reported as part of its quarterly earnings, and there were more Apple Pay transactions in September than in all of Apple's fiscal 2015. The app's regional expansion is part of the jump—Apple Pay is now available in many more countries than a year ago as the company added key markets in Asia and Europe. The growth of the Apple Watch has also played a role. And there's still room for more. Apple Pay is now live in mobile-savvy Japan, using the contactless technology FeliCa, which is already widely used in the country, according to Apple tracking site 9-to-5 Mac.

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

The Walmart transfer: While Walmart builds an audience for its new mobile payment app, the retail giant is also keeping an eye on its myriad payment ventures, and this week launched a major expansion of its transfer business. The chain has raised limits for its U.S.-focused Walmart2Walmart to $2,500 from $900 for a fee of $18. It also expanded transfers to Walmart stores in Mexico—consumers can send up to $800 for a fee of $6.50 or less. Walmart is taking advantage of a couple of trends. The growth in P-to-P payments is boosting transfers within the U.S. to the tune of $520 billion by 2018, or 200% growth from 2015, according to Juniper Research. And the remittance market is also expanding, particularly to Mexico.

Retail tech turns to mobile loyalty: Tying marketing to mobile payment apps has long been a vexing problem for digital wallet initiatives, and developers of retail mobile wallets are starting to take notice. For example, Kohl's department stores earlier this month revealed its closed-loop Kohl's Pay wallet would add redemption of Kohl's Cash and other rewards.The competitive onus to add consumer perks such as loyalty and rewards to apps is extending to the merchant technology industry, where Synchrony Financial has launched a plug-in for the mobile apps of its retail partners. The SyPi integration allows retailers' cardholders to shop, redeem rewards and make payments to accounts from their smartphones. Other functions allow cardholders to view account balances and purchase activity, or check available credit when making purchasing decisions.

Data breach in Denmark: A data breach has compromised as many as 100,000 payment cards, according to Nets, a payment processor in Denmark. A report in the European technology wire Finextra says the processor is alerting bank clients of the hack, and believes the crime is linked to a single Internet retailer. Nets has also called on local banks to replace the stolen cards quickly, and it's also working with Visa and Mastercard to investigate the breach. Jyske Bank has reportedly blocked and is replacing 7,000 cards that were exposed.

From the Web (powered by Wiser)

Payments startup Stripe says it’s still too hard to sell stuff online
Recode • Jason Del Rey
Co-founder John Collison says the company will take payments from anyone, anywhere, so what’s the problem? It’s still too hard to sell stuff online. That’s according to someone who would know: John Collison, co-founder of the $5 billion payments startup Stripe.

PayPal Leading The Digital Currency Revolution - Can Anyone Take It Down?
Seeking Alpha • Gary Bourgeault
PayPal's Venmo makes it the leader in the mobile payment space. Will process over $20 billion by end of 2016 - just getting started. Resistance from those opposing cashless society won't harm the company - market wants digital payment options.

Wall Street Banks to Face On-Site Reviews of Sales Practices
Bloomberg • Jesse Hamilton
To ensure Wells Fargo & Co.s scandal over unauthorized customer accounts isn't being repeated at other lenders, regulators are poised to start reviewing data and talking to employees inside the biggest U.S. banks, according to a person familiar with the ma

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