12.23.16: Your morning briefing

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

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:

Sweetgreen stops taking cash: Sweetgreen, a fast food salad brand, doesn't want its customers paying with cash anymore. It will outright ban cash payments next year, starting in January with its locations in New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania, according to Business Insider. More locations will follow in March; the exceptions will be its Boston stores, where it is required by law to accept cash, according to BI. Most customers may not notice the change; just 10% of Sweetgreen's sales are handled in cash, the article said, and last January the company tested the cashless concept in six locations — resulting in a 10% boost to service speed.

Android Pay finally coming to wearables: It's about time; when Android Wear 2.0 comes to market next year, the flagship smartwatches will have Android Pay built in, according to TechCrunch. Though Google beat the Apple Watch to market with its Android Wear platform, smartwatch makers were never required to include NFC in their devices, and few did. Some smartwatch apps were able to handle payments through software, but these fell short of the Android Pay experience offered on Google's handsets.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Barnes and not-so-noble: The new $50 Nook e-reader tablet from Barnes & Noble comes at a steep privacy cost. The tablet comes with software called ADUPS, which can read and transmit any data users input, including the contents of text messages, according to a report on 9to5Google. In an earlier incident, the same software on BLU was found to be transmitting data to China, the report states. Since the malware's discovery on the Nook, Barnes & Noble has pushed out an update to ADUPS that closes the security hole; a later update will remove the software entirely. Nook tablets never transmitted any of the data that the software could have collected, Barnes & Noble said.

Brexit's tech fallout: Tesla Motors is the latest tech company to acknowledge that the Brexit vote has affected its prices, according to The Guardian, which reports the electric-car maker's U.K. prices will rise 5% on custom orders next year due to currency fluctuations. Clothing and gadget prices have also spiked since the Brexit vote, which has caused the pound to lose 15% of its value against the dollar, The Guardian states. Tesla, a U.S. company, also has facilities in the Netherlands, the article states.

From the Web (powered by Wiser)

With bank servers strained, glitches continue to dog Paytm
The Hindu Business Line • Press Trust
Mobile payments company Paytm continues to face transaction issues, with several users complaining that money deducted from their bank accounts did not reach their e-wallets. Besides, the users sai...

PayPal in talks to acquire 25% stake in FreeCharge for nearly $200 million: Mint
Scroll.in - News. Politics. Culture. • Scroll Staff
The possible sale will be discussed by the mobile payment firm’s parent company in the first week of January, the report said.

Demonetisation Day 44: No queues at ATMs, but no cash either!
The Economic Times of India
Hari Punjabi, a Delhi University student, had a similar story to share even though he has shifted to partial cashlessness by installing eWallet Paytm on his iPhone.

More from PaymentsSource

Payment companies eye Africa's regional pain points
Though cash remains the most prevalent form of payment in Africa, some companies are setting the wheels in motion for a much-anticipated e-commerce revolution.

Merchants need to be data sleuths to combat 'advance fee' fraud
Fraud involving third parties and advance fees can be vexing for merchants. But doing lots of homework can mitigate the threat.

Overdraft battle looms in new year
WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is facing renewed pressure by consumer groups and think tanks to move forward with a plan that would rein in overdraft programs.

First Data extends parental leave to up to three months
First Data's joining the trend of financial companies that are emphasizing family leave benefits heading into the new year, announcing new policies for caregivers.

U.S. noncash payments are a $178 trillion market: Fed
A new analysis from the Federal Reserve shows checks as one of the few non-cash payment types to decline, while many others are on the rise.