Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.
Welcome to the PaymentsSource Morning Briefing, delivered daily. The information you need to start your day, including top headlines from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Not yet a 'Go': Amazon Go's "no cashier" store is delayed, partly because of its inability to handle crowds. The Wall Street Journal reports Amazon initially planned to open its first public store in early 2017, but is working on some technology issues, including some cases in which the computers could not identify a shopper's item. The Amazon Go store, which thus far has only been available to Amazon staff on a pilot basis, has also run into trouble when there's more than 20 people inside. Amazon Go is designed to enable "Just Walk Out," an experience in which consumers download an app and select items as if in a "normal" store. Sensors in the store's shelves register the pickups, which are then added to the consumer's Amazon account. The store has caused worry among traditional retailers when it was first announced, though other chains such as Kroger claimed to be working on a mix of service and technology that would accomplish the same low-touch result.
Employees stand outside the new Amazon Go grocery store in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Amazon.com Inc. unveiled technology that will let shoppers grab groceries without having to scan and pay for them -- in one stroke eliminating the checkout line. Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg
David Ryder/Bloomberg
New market for Square: Square has launched in the U.K., the fifth country for the mobile point of sale company, joining Canada, Japan, Australia and the U.S. Beyond smartphone card acceptance, Square is also bringing its range of merchant services to the U.K., developed over the years as the number of mobile point of sale providers has proliferated. It's a condition Square will also face in the U.K., as mobile point of sale technology from PayPal and others has been available for years. In the U.K., business owners need to purchase the Square Reader for about $50 from the Square Shop, connect it via Bluetooth to a phone or tablet and download the Square Point of Sale app. Sellers will pay a fee of 1.75% for in-person payments, and 2.5% for card not present payments such as phone, online or e-invoice. Square believes there is a large addressable market for small-business mobile payments in the U.K. At Tuesday's launch event in London, Square said about half of the U.K's 5.5 million small businesses do not take card payments, a percentage The Mirror attributed to Barclaycard.
Digital forex: Travelex, the foreign currency exchange company that's a staple of large international airports, has launched Travelex Wire, an automated version of its flagship product. The new Travelex offering will allow account holders to select a destination market, recipient and payment amount, and will then manage the transfer similar to a cross-border account transfer or remittance. The cross-border payments market has been expanding quickly and has become attractive to myriad technology, payment companies and other bank alternatives. Travelex's new online service is built on Amazon Web Service's cloud and Travelex's own digital payments platform, and is considered a gateway to broader payment services.
Transfer troubles: German bank KfW has suffered a system glitch that led to a series of large automatically repeating transactions. How large? Finextra reports the bank mistakenly transferred $5.4 billion to four unnamed counterparty institutions. The bank said a configuration mistake and unintentional human error led to a disconnect between its Swift interface and transaction software, causing payments to be made over and over again. An internal technology team discovered the bug, corrected it, and the recipient banks returned the money to KfW, which told Finextra it would form a task force to avoid similar errors in the future. It's not KfW's first rodeo. The bank also mistakenly transferred more than $400 million to Lehman Brothers on the same day Lehman infamously filed for bankruptcy in 2008, causing the international finance community to call KfW Germany's "dumbest" bank.
The Prediction Of Mobile Payment Processing In The Future Valuewalk.com • Guest Post Mobile payment processing is not new as they have a lot of apps in the mobile phone that are easy for users to buy any products or services online.
As payment networks expand, you can buy more than burgers with Venmo Los Angeles Times • James Rufus Koren Mobile payment apps are easy ways for people to send money to each other — digital replacements for the cash used to pay back a friend for beers or the $50 birthday check to your granddaughter. But some peer-to-peer, or p2p, payment...
Smartphone savers BBC • Monty Munford Smartphone banking is turning us into smart savers, research suggests, as consumers take control.
More from PaymentsSource
Old-school passwords are a magnet for modern web crooks The recent Verifone breach reminds us the retail and payments industries are suffering too much pain due to ongoing attacks to obtain data through man-in-the-middle attacks, malware installation, social engineering and other nefarious activities.
Is there a case for using consumer tech for B-to-B payments? The business-to-business payments market is one of the laggards in transaction automation, and a reason often given is the lack of customization options. Businesses are using consumer-style technology for business purposes, and the fit isn't right.
Supreme Court’s swipe-fee stance emboldens large merchants Large merchants are re-energized in their conflict with Visa and Mastercard on the issue of swipe-fee costs, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to reinstate a class-action settlement that deeply divided many of the plaintiffs.
FIS, minor league ball clubs team up for payments Financial technology provider Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has entered an agreement that will help create the "ballpark of the future" with Minor League Baseball.
House Republicans overcame internal divisions to narrowly pass President Trump's tax and spending package Thursday afternoon. The measure would cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding level, among other provisions.
Atlanta-based CoastalSouth's initial public offering prices at $21.50 a share; Valley National Bancorp announces Lyndsey Sloan will succeed Gary Michael as general counsel; Webster Financial Corporation taps a new chief risk officer and appoints a new board member; and more in this week's banking news roundup.
Capital One closed the deal to buy the credit card provider in May and as part of the review process, decided to exit its home equity lending business.
