6.1.17: Your morning briefing

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:

Google tightens its phishing net: Phishing emails are designed to be convincing duplicates of emails from banks and other sources, but they aren't fooling Google. The tech giant claims its machine-learning models detect spam and phishing emails with 99.9 percent accuracy, according to TechCrunch. It does so by combining several processes: It detects malicious links via Google Safe Browsing integration, delays suspicious Gmail messages for extra analysis (about 0.05 percent of its total volume), adds warnings when people click a suspicious link on an email that got through, and can warn business customers when they begin corresponding with unfamiliar recipients, the article states. Despite these advances, phishing remains a major threat; Verizon reports 81% of hacking-related breaches used stolen passwords, and 51% used malware.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Distributed ledgers do better in Singapore than Canada: Shortly after Canada decided distributed ledger technology isn't ready to support interbank payments, the technology received a boost in Singapore where a similar project is moving ahead after tests. Project Ubin is a collaboration between the Monetary Authority of Singapore, a group of banks and the blockchain initiative R3 to determine how DLT can be used for clearing and settlement. The first six week of the test were deemed a success, reports Finextra. Ubin is now in its second phase, using DLT to power fixed income security trading and conducting cross-border payments via a central bank digital currency.

Amazon's $70M in-app payment: Since the dawn of the mobile app store, companies have had a hard time striking the right balance between security and convenience for in-app sales. Amazon is the latest company to pay up for its mistakes, offering to refund up to $70 million to parents whose kids conducted unauthorized in-app purchases, Ars Technica reports. The offer stems from a years-long court case initiated by the FTC, which sued Amazon in 2014 over concerns that the company's Kindle Fire OS did not implement parental controls by default, leading to in-app purchases of up to $99.99 that did not require a password. Amazon isn't alone in paying a price for its in-app payment policies; in 2011, Apple tightened its own policies after reports that a Smurfs' Village iPhone game allowed kids to buy up to $99.99 in virtual smurfberries without being prompted for a password. Apple also faced a complaint from the FTC, and settled in 2014 with an agreement to refund $32 million to consumers; Google agreed to a $19 million settlement with the FTC the same year over similar allegations.

Tube drinks: The energy drink Lucozade is embedding contactless chips on the bottom of its bottles, which can be used to access the Oxford Circus Underground station in London. Commuters are given the drinks as they enter the station, According to IPM. The deployment is part of a marketing collaboration between the drink company and Transport for London, and demonstrates contactless payments are common enough in London to be a basic part of a publicity stunt. The technology gained traction for transit payments as early as 2013 and has accelerated since, adding wearable payment technology for fares and partnering with transportation technology company Cubic to export contactless transportation payments to other countries.

Steals on wheels: As more payment networks and tech companies work to embed payments into Internet-connected cars, it's worth noting that onboard vehicle systems are as vulnerable as any other computer. Recently, members of the Tijuana-based Hooligans motorcycle club were indicted for allegedly using a compromised database to create duplicate keys for Jeeps, and are suspected of stealing 150 of the vehicles from the San Diego area over the course of several years, the San Diego Tribune reports. The alleged theft involved disabling the vehicle's alarm and then using a computer to program a valid key to operate the vehicle. The risk of theft is just one of the many concerns of bringing payments to connected cars; there are also issues around user experience design, driver distraction, voice controls and whether to limit certain interactions to when the car is parked.

From the Web

Phone Scams Seeking Utility Payments Rise in Vermont
U.S. News & World Report | Thu Jun 1, 2017 - Vermont's attorney general and power companies are warning residents about phone scammers seeking utility payments and how to avoid being duped. They say the scammers pretending to be utilities call homes and businesses demanding payment for electricity with a credit card, prepaid card or money order. Utilities say these types of scams are on the rise in Vermont.

Mobile Wallet Paytm Hits Pay Dirt Amid India's Cash Crackdown
Fox Business | Wed May 31, 2017 - India's second-most-valuable startup, the mobile-payments app Paytm, has a new target after proving itself more popular than credit cards. The company's boast isn't a stretch, given India's crackdown on cash over the past six months has left citizens and merchants searching for cashless payment alternatives. Paytm has seized the opportunity and become the market leader through timely partnerships, simplifying the app's process and dispatching an army of up to 10,000 trainers to reach out to the tiny shops that dominate the Indian economy.

Fintech goes to Washington: Regulators, financial firms discuss wave of future
The Hill | Wed May 31, 2017 - The FinTech Innovation Lab’s (FIL) new regulator-in-residence, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury Jonah Crane, is attempting to answer these questions for the FIL cohort. Crane’s expertise enables companies in the lab to identify and develop strategies to address potential regulatory and policy issues.

More from PaymentsSource

Fingerprint security's strong, but it still needs help
Mastercard is among the payment companies to embrace a new advancement in credit card security, biometric fingerprint scanners.

JetBlue to test facial recognition
JetBlue Airways Corp. plans to test facial-recognition technology to match travelers to passport or visa photos, adding to efforts by other carriers to eliminate the need for boarding passes.

U.S. Bank’s Voyager fuel card to support electric vehicle charging
The use case for U.S. Bank’s Voyager fuel card is expanding to cover electric vehicle charging through a new partnership.

Verified by Visa transitions to 3-D Secure 2.0
Visa plans to support 3-D Secure 2.0 in an upcoming enhancement to its Verified by Visa service, giving merchants and issuers real time accurate customer authentication of cardholders and a superior end user checkout experience.