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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:
Visa's tech 'boot camp' in Africa: Visa is partnering with Nest, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm, to operate a financial technology boot camp in Nairobi, according to Disrupt Africa. The partners are on the lookout for developers with programs that can boost financial inclusion, P-to-P or merchant payments — all key elements of building a financial services ecosystem in a developing market. The top firms will have access to APIs and will be able to pitch Nest for funding and resources. Like a lot of established financial services companies, Visa has been gradually opening its technology over the past year to external sources to diversify and speed innovation.
Visa Inc. and contactless payment logos sit on a debit card in this arranged photograph, in London, U.K., on Friday, May 22, 2015. Credit and debit cards that can be used by tapping the reader are gaining users, and mobile apps are set to further boost the popularity of contactless paying. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Pebble shuts down: Wearable technology pioneer Pebble is shutting down as Fitbit absorbs the company, Pebble announced, confirming a deal that had been rumoured for weeks. Pebble did not disclose terms of the Fitbit deal, and it did not provide details on staffing, though it did say many of its staff would be going Fitbit. Supported mostly by crowdfunding, Pebble was considered a lower-cost alternative to Apple Watch. Fitbit has been accumulating technology to position it to accept payments, most notably acquiring Coin's Near Field Communications technology as part of Coin's diversification beyond its original strategy of selling cards that store multiple payment accounts.
Discount Brazilian card draws VC funding:Brazil's in the midst of an economic crisis, but alternative financial technology startup Nubank has drawn $80 million in new funding, according to TechCrunch. DST Global led the round, putting Nubank in the company of Klarna, Lending Club, Slack and Alibaba, which are also in DST's portfolio.Nubank's primary product is a discount (the company calls it "no fee") credit card that is managed only through a mobile app. The startup told TechCrunch it would use the new funds to hire more staff and diversify its product range.
EU falls behind on payment specs: The European Banking Authority may not meet its timetable for standards designed to protect new retail payment technology. Finextra reports the authority has been overwhelmed with comment on the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for the Payments Services Directive (PSD2). The authority is supposed to have 11 of these new standards ready, and thus far has completed only four. The challenge should sound familiar; the authority reports it's having a hard time reconciling the need to improve authentication specifications while encouraging open communication between payment companies, merchants and banks to drive mobile commerce and other payment innovation.
Android Pay FAQ: Everything you need to know about Google's mobile payment system CIO • Derek Walter The promise of mobile payments is that you’ll never need your wallet again. Just a tap on the payment terminal with your smartphone will get you everything from movie tickets to groceries. In reality, we’re nowhere near ubiquity when it comes to.
The Bumpy Road To Mobile Payments MediaPost • Chuck Martin Mobile payments just can't catch a break. At first, a long lag was created when Apple held off adopting near field communication technology until its later models, when it finally introduced Apple Pay. Then the market had to wait for retailers to.
Should your business adopt mobile payments? www.techrepublic.com • Alison Denisco One-third of consumers expect mobile money will dominate payments within a decade, yet merchants have been slow to catch up. Here's why you should consider mobile payments, and how to get started.
More from PaymentsSource
Fickle consumers make lasting P-to-P victories elusive The lifespan of a P-to-P payment app depends on various factors, not the least of which is whether a bank or third-party provider threw a clunker in a front of consumers with short attention spans.
Most existing payment tech can't keep up with e-commerce The next year may be a particularly challenging time for the industry. Merchant and customer needs are evolving at lightning speed, and payment companies must be able to provide swift and effective response.
Circle pivots from bitcoin trading to mobile payments Circle Internet Financial is deemphasizing bitcoin services to focus on global mobile payments, it said Wednesday as it unveiled a new blockchain protocol called Spark and messaging features for its existing app.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to banking regulators urging them to preserve the enhanced Supplemental Leverage Ratio, warning that a rollback would only enrich bank shareholders.
Cincinnati-based First Financial scooped up Westfield Bank near Cleveland after Westfield's parent company decided to exit the bank space and focus on its core insurance business.
