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Stripe's China play: Stripe will collaborate with WeChat and Alipay to make it easier for merchants around the world to accept payments from Chinese consumers. The deal demonstrates the flexibility of Stripe's technology and the substantial size of China's e-commerce market, which the BBC estimates is about $750 billion in yearly payments volume. The BBC reports most of that spending is inside China because of the lack of Chinese credit cards available for overseas merchants. While WeChat and Alipay are striking deals to make it easier for Chinese travelers to make payments outside of China, the Stripe deal is focused on consumers inside China making purchases from outside retailers. There is some risk for Stripe, reports the BBC, because the impact on Stripe's bottom line depends on the popularity of these foreign retailers inside of China. Stripe co-founder John Collison told the BBC these retailers are more likely to sell to Chinese consumers if it's easy for them to collect payments.
The Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Alipay.com Co. website, displayed on a Samsung Electronics Co. tablet, is seen in an arranged photograph in Hong Kong, China, on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013. Alibaba, Chinas largest e-commerce company, will go public in 2014 after talks with Hong Kongs exchange on a proposed corporate governance structure fell apart, said people with knowledge of the matter. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
The Hague picks up mobile ticketing: The use of mobile technology to power payments and ticketing for mass transit is picking up steam, with Sydney recently joining the dozens of cities globally that are migrating away from manual or ticket-based systems. The Hague is the latest city to go mobile, using ticketing and fare collection technology from Masabi, reports ITS International. The service, called JustRide, works on trams and buses across 17 transit lines, which account for about $100 million in fare revenue per year. The deployment will provide an alternative to the current practice of purchasing single-use and daily tickets, or disposable smart cards that can't be reused. The cloud-delivered JustRide will allow passengers to buy tickets at any time or any location using an app that's linked to IDEAL, the Dutch payments system.
Horror story: B&B Theaters is investigating a data breach that may have exposed card data information for up to two years. Security writer Brian Krebs reports B&B, which is the seventh largest chain in the U.S., was made aware of the breach by a local banking partner in one of its markets. B&B has locations in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.The company hired Trustwave to examine its IT system to contain the breach and prevent further problems. B&B told Krebs it found malware that dates to 2015, but said that payment data for all consumers was not exposed for the entire two year span. In a bit of good news, or perhaps bad news, Krebs reports the B&B breach persisted for so long that many of the cards had already been cancelled and reissued because they had been exposed in other unrelated retail data breaches.
New rules for payments insurance: The European Banking Authority has released its final guidance under the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) for the insurance that backs payments. There's criteria for professional indemnity insurance or other guarantees for payment initiation services or account information services, according to a release. The guidance is designed to strengthen liability standards for electronic payments by improving the calculation of protection levels. The guarantee will be calculated by the size of the payments and the risk criteria of the parties, the type of payment and the activity that's involved in the transaction. The new guidance goes into effect on Jan. 13, 2018.
From the Web
Finance Chiefs Want You to Use Plastic, Not Paper The Wall Street Journal | Mon Jul 10, 2017 - Companies are giving more of their employees corporate credit cards as they seek easier expense tracking and savings from suppliers. The use of corporate cards and other payment technologies are on the rise. About one in five finance departments said they would invest more in company-backed credit cards this year, according to a report by Strategic Treasurer, a consultancy. The move is driven by security concerns, with 72% of respondents concerned with the potential of external hacks.
Wells Fargo says closer to reaching $142 million phony accounts settlement Reuters | Sun Jul 9, 2017 - A California judge has granted a preliminary approval for Wells Fargo & Co's agreement to pay $142 million, and perhaps more, to customers whose credit scores were harmed by its employees creating fake accounts in their names, the bank said on Sunday. Wells Fargo has set aside that money to compensate customers who are part of a class-action lawsuit involving claims regarding consumer or small business bank accounts, credit cards or loans, as well as identity theft protection, between May 2002 and April of this year. It plans to begin reaching out to those affected customers soon.
Will biometrics "active authentication" help do away with passwords? CBS News | Sat Jul 8, 2017 - The average computer user has 27 passwords, and it can be tough to keep track of them all. But a solution may be at hand in our devices, with sensors that can read all kinds of identifying information about us. That could make biometric data the key to our online world, putting an end to the password.
Synchrony eyes chatbots, artificial intelligence to halt retailer app churn Keeping consumers engaged with mobile apps is a losing battle most of the time, with studies suggesting 90% of consumers stop using newly downloaded apps within 30 days, but Synchrony Financial is fighting that trend with new technology for retailers’ mobile apps that may soon include chatbots and artificial intelligence.
6 uses of facial recognition in payments Consumers have accepted the use of fingerprint authentication for mobile payments. But will they be as welcoming of facial recognition? A few companies are testing the waters.
The largest U.S. banks took less of a capital hit under the Federal Reserve's hypothetical stress scenario than they did last year, but averaging the two sets of results could impact next year's regulatory requirements.
Time is running out for the 90-day pause on most of President Trump's tariffs. But at least two bank CEOs are confident there won't be a summer sequel to "Liberation Day."
The company sought to pay far less than a New York court had imposed as a result of the lawsuit the SEC brought against it. In a twist, the new SEC leadership argued on the company's side against the prior administration's position.
