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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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Call the Colonel: Crooks have hacked KFC's Colonel's Club loyalty system in the U.K., with a unreleased number of accounts potentially compromised. TechCrunch reports the club has 1.2 million members, who were advised to change their passwords for the loyalty system and any other unrelated account. The technology news site reports the attacker may have had access to password data, either through databases or through login exchanges. KFC also told TechCrunch that the scope of the attack appears limited and it does not store card information in the Colonel's Club, so no financial information was compromised.
Signage is displayed at a Yum! Brands Inc. KFC restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016. Yum! Brands is expected to release earnings figures on October 5. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
Standard Bank goes all in: South Africa's Standard Bank has rode Africa's mobile money wave early and often, and the financial institution is now making a direct play to build a mobile payments business by acquiring local startup Firepay, according to IT News Africa. Standard and Firepay have collaborated in the past, signing up more than 30,000 local merchants and hundreds of thousands of consumers to an app that enables stores to receive a QR code that they print out and place at their point of sale terminals. Consumers use the app to pay via tap and a PIN. The bank did not release terms of the transaction, though Firepay will retain its management structure.
Salsa mPOS: Mobile point of sale systems are maturing quickly, enough for companies such as Square to be the mobile point of sale provider for Coachella music festival earlier this year. In a similar move, eMobilePOS from eNabler was named the POS solution provider for the World Salsa Championships in Atlanta over the weekend. The software was used to admit attendees and accept payments for retail merchandise, according to a release from the company. eMobilePOS ran on a Samsung Galaxy Android Tablet and was paired with a Star Micronics device that includes a cash drawer and printer.
One in five Europeans 'excluded' from banking: While financial inclusion projects are normally associated with emerging economies, as many as 138 million Europeans are not part of the formal banking system, reports Mastercard, which would be about 20% of the continent's total population. About a third of Europeans without a bank account are employed while another third are millennials, according to onestopbrokers. The card network's research cites lack of knowledge and trust as reasons for the high percentage, and notes that 20% of the unbanked do not want a bank account while 10% do not trust the banking system. Mastercard says the keys to bridge the gap include more education, technology and greater prepaid options.
I have seen the future of wearable payments, and it is magical Android Central • Ara Wagoner Disney World does mobile payments right. I went to Walt Disney World at the beginning of December. It was absolutely glorious. And each day, while in the parks, I did not take a wallet with me. I stuck my driver's license in...
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John Adams is executive editor of payments for American Banker. John interviews top executives in the payments, cryptocurrency and fintech... Read full bio
Industry lawyers and experts say the latest wrinkle in a long-running LPL-Ameriprise recruiting dispute shows why advisors should strongly consider retaining their own legal counsel when changing firms.
First Financial Bancorp in Cincinnati named Chief Financial Officer Jamie Anderson as president. The move positions Anderson as heir apparent to CEO Archie Brown, according to one analyst.
A federal judge said recent preemption rules from the National Credit Union Administration would bar Illinois from enforcing its interchange fee restrictions against federal credit unions.
The former top executive at Nodus International Bank in Puerto Rico was sentenced to more than nine years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to Venezuela sanctions evasion and wire-fraud conspiracy.
The latest Fidelity Investments M&A report displayed a trend that dealmakers had already been noticing: RIA buyers are getting more selective. But experts say sellers can still stand out with the right attributes, and they must find the right fit in the process.