6.13.17: Your morning briefing

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

Best Buy gets in on showrooming: Well aware that many people come to its stores to try stuff before they buy it on Amazon.com, Best Buy is looking to make its role official with a gadget rental service. Shoppers on BestBuy.com will see a rental link on product pages that sends them to another site, Lumoid, to complete the rental, Gizmodo reports. This partnership takes advantage of Best Buy's open box inventory, but there are some exclusions, the article notes; drones, for example, can't be rented, despite the appeal of trying out such a new device category before committing to a purchase. As for Amazon, it's pushing in the other direction by encroaching on retail with new store concepts such as AmazonFresh Pickup and Amazon Go.

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Marketing payments in India: India's recent recall of large-denomination bills helped shift the country toward digital payments, but there's more that can be done. The National Payments Corporation of India wants to launch a "mega campaign" to market the government's digital payments initiative, The Economic Times reported. To this end, it has invited bids from media investment agencies to design a campaign to "leave a strong impression and help in instant brand and product recall," the article states, quoting the organization's request for proposal.

Multi-currency business credit cards: Joining a growing number of companies working to modernize B-to-B payments, London fintech startup Revolut has debuted a multi-currency card for businesses. The new product, offered in the U.K. and other parts of Europe, supports 25 currencies at the interbank exchange rate, TechCrunch reports. It competes with services such as TransferWise, but charges a fee of £25 to £1,000 per month, depending on the client's needs. That said, TransferWise doesn't yet offer a plastic card, the article notes.

Dennis Rodman, PotCoin and North Korea: A marijuana cryptocurrency startup, PotCoin, is sending Dennis Rodman back to North Korea, The Verge reports, citing tweets in which the basketball star thanked PotCoin for sponsoring his trip. The startup suggests a diplomatic reason for Rodman's journey, noting he has connections to both Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, but largely remains vague on the details. Rodman was a bit more clear: "My purpose is to go over there and try to see if I can keep bringing sports to North Korea," he told CNN in an interview from his plane. Whatever the reason, Rodman's trip has already benefited Potcoin; digital currency's value surged based on the publicity, The Verge notes.

From the Web

Fiserv to buy UK mobile payments pioneer Monitise for 70 million pounds
Reuters | Tue Jun 13, 2017 - U.S. financial technology provider Fiserv said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy British financial services technology firm Monitise Plc for about 70 million pounds ($88.72 million). AIM-listed Monetise, worth about 2 billion pounds at its peak in early 2014, blazed a trail by linking banks and mobile operators to build a business capable of handling billions of dollars in mobile payments, purchases and money transfers.

WorldRemit Adds Android Pay as Secure Option for Migrant Remittances
The New York Times | Tue Jun 13, 2017 - Cross-border money transfer service WorldRemit is enabling its immigrant customer base to send money home using Android Pay, making it the first international remittance firm to run on the Google payments system, the company said on Tuesday.

FATF Wants To Use Fintech Against Money Laundering
The Wall Street Journal | Mon Jun 12, 2017 - Juan Manuel Vega-Serrano is the president of the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based international body that sets standards on anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-finance compliance. In his home country of Spain, he serves as the director of Sepblac, the country’s anti-money laundering authority. The FATF last month held a session in San Jose, Calif. with companies.

More from PaymentsSource

How connected cars steer us toward a cashless society
So far, the use cases for digital payments from connected cars seem too specific to spark a widespread shift in consumer habits. But connected cars may yet prove to be drivers of change.

Canada's mobile wallet paradox: Too much infrastructure, not enough incentive
Due in part to the U.S.'s lackluster adoption of contactless cards, mobile wallets had a slow and difficult time gaining hold among consumers and merchants that were unfamiliar with the tap-and-pay process or didn't have the right technology. The opposite problem plagues Canada, where contactless cards are so widely used that mobile adds little value.

Latin American cash crunch is an opening for blockchain
Currency fluctuations and government policies in countries such as Venezuela are boosting the virtual currency market and putting traditional players on notice, writes Sergey Ponomarev, CEO of SONM.

PayPal reflects on the evolution of its identity in digital commerce
At its core, PayPal remains sharply focused on digital payments. But like other payments providers and processors during what has been a renaissance period for payments technology, the San Jose-based company has had to reinvent itself to keep firm control of its role.

TSYS unboxes fraud-fighting tool with Featurespace
A year after announcing plans to collaborate with U.K.-based Featurespace to develop fraud-fighting tools with artificial intelligence and machine learning, Total System Services (TSYS) has rolled out a new offering that aims to predict new and unknown fraud types, while cutting back on “false positive" fraud warnings.