6.23.17: 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:

Square adds more tools for e-commerce merchants: Square is adding a feature that enables buyers to use credit cards online, giving the company an additional option in addition to its flagship brick and mortar mobile point of sale technology and preordering, and offering another tool to compete with e-commerce technology companies such as Stripe. Called Square Checkout, the company is betting its recognizable brand will lure merchants that want to hand off processing, security and compliance while focusing more on direct sales to consumers in digital channels. Square Checkout has a user interface that handles order details, shipping information and payment card instructions. It ties to Square Dashboard to record and track sales; and links to Square's API to enable merchants to store payments, inventory and shipping information. The move follows Square's increasing forays into providing services for digital merchants.

Yana Paskova/Bloomberg

Real time in Europe: As faster payment processing projects progress around the world, a new initiative in Europe may soon enable near instant payments anywhere in the Euro area. The European Central Bank in November will launch an instant settlement system called Tips that will allow people and businesses to send funds within seconds at all times, reports the Financial Times. That's a huge reduction from the current pace of one business day for transfers within the Eurozone. The ECB will work with banks over the next few months in preparation for launch, and will offer transfers for a fee of about $0.2 cents per payment. Some countries in Europe, such as Italy and Spain, already have instant payments, but the ECB wants a system that works across the entire continent.

Mobile pay for weed: A payments market for legal marijuana has been slow to develop, but options for dispensaries are on the rise. Glance Technology has signed a deal with Cannapay to provide white label processing, security and mobile transactions, reports Crossroads Today. Cannapay, which aims be a leading brand for payments in the global cannabis industry, is negotiating with dispensaries in the U.S. to supply business and consumer payments and merchant services. Under the deal, Glance, which already has a stake in Cannapay, will acquire an additional 4 million common shares of Cannapay at $0.05 per share.

India embraces the future: India's sudden removal of nearly 85% of the country's paper money in the fall of 2016 has shown a definitive move to mobile and other emerging technology. A new study from FIS found more than 60% of banking consumers have used a mobile device in the past year to check balances, view transactions, make payments, transfer funds or perform other financial services. That's up from 39% in 2016 and 34% in 2015. India removed certain currency from circulation as a security measure, with the government claiming that people were using paper money to avoid paying taxes and to hide other illegal activity. But the government has also encouraged people to use mobile apps, a move that's helped the performance of both domestic and international mobile payment efforts in India.

From the Web

Fed’s Stress Test Puts Focus on Credit Cards
The Wall Street Journal | Thu Jun 22, 2017 - The Federal Reserve’s annual stress-test of banks showed that credit cards have moved to the top of the list of concerns about potential losses. Banks would incur $100 billion in projected credit card losses in a severely adverse hypothetical recession calculated by the Fed in Thursday’s test.

Payment Firm Worldpay Says Can Operate via Dutch Unit After Brexit
The New York Times | Thu Jun 22, 2017 - Payment processor Worldpay Group Plc expects to operate in the European Union through its Dutch business after Britain leaves the bloc, a company spokesman said on Thursday. FTSE 100 company Worldpay did not comment on whether it would increase staff in Amsterdam, its Dutch base. Worldpay, which provides platforms to allow merchants to accept payments by cards and other methods, floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2015.

First Global signs agreement for deployment of mobile payments in Bangladesh
Reuters | Thu Jun 22, 2017 - First Global Data Ltd signs definitive agreement for deployment of mobile payments in Bangladesh. Says Aamra will integrate Aamra pay app into mobile handsets (We Mobile) they manufacture and distribute in Bangladesh.

More from PaymentsSource

Crooks are on the prowl for late EMV converts
More than 60% of all U.S. payment cards are now EMV-enabled and just over half of all merchants are chip-compliant, which has slashed counterfeit card risk for many operators.

Conceding to the 'pays' is a losing strategy for banks
In the wake of increased mobile wallet adoption, many banks have conceded mobile payments business to so-called “xPay” providers such as Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay because, when viewed merely as a method of payment, there is seemingly little payoff in simply performing payments.

Can humanizing self-checkout discourage consumer fraud?
Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods, the retailer’s forays into unattended retail and a company culture that is famously fervent about driving down margins raise legitimate concerns about the future of Whole Foods' staff in an increasingly automated industry.

BofA settles debit fee case with Arizona ex-prisoners
Bank of America has agreed to repay former Arizona state prison inmates for fees they were charged to access debit card funds when they were released from prison in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit announced Tuesday.