7.12.17: 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:

Paying stores to not use cash: Visa has taken several recent steps to expand its digital payment capabilities, adding Walmart and other merchants to its Visa Checkout network and upgrading its technology to support payments via connected devices. It's now reportedly taking a much more direct route by incenting restaurants to use digital payments exclusively. The Wall Street Journal reports Visa will shortly announce a plan to pay small merchants to upgrade their payment technology to support digital payments. But in return, the businesses, which the newspaper reports will be smaller merchants, must stop taking cash. It's a dramatic step, but a carrot and stick approach to ditching paper money is gaining steam. Several cities in China have gone cashless, or at least have issued strong incentives to use digital payments over paper money. And most famously, the Indian government last year pulled about 85% of the country's paper money out of circulation to push the country into digital payments, citing security.

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Ripple reaches 81% of Japan: Blockchain lab Ripple has attracted 61 banks to join its payment consortium in Japan, up from 47 banks a couple of months ago and covering 81% of the country. The additions include three of Japan's largest banks, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, MUFG and Mizuho, Ripple announced. The banks are working with Ripple to form a real-time payments network. The banks and Ripple are also developing a mobile application that will unite all of the banks on a common framework, set to launch later this year. Ripple, which uses its distributed ledger technology to power transactions, recently expanded its technology to accommodate larger networks.

Screen scraping fight won't go away: Not only is the battle over screen scraping in Europe not cooling off, it's getting more participants. Finextra reports The consumer group BEUC is urging authorities to ban screen scraping, and instead push for a standard interface to share customer data. The EU Commission, which is finishing work on the PSD2 standards, has proposed banning screen scraping in favor of APIs to comply with the broader mandate that banks share data with third parties at a consumer's request. The technology industry is pushing for screen scraping to remain intact, contending the APIs or alternate interface would give banks too much power over data sharing terms. There's also a potential compromise that would use APIs, but retain screen scraping as a backup.

Santander may invest in Curve: Curve's "back in time" model has drawn interest from venture capital investors and is close to landing $10 million in Series A funding, reports TechCrunch. Curve, which stores several card relationships, allows users to change the card used in an older purchase in the case of an errant choice. Users link bank card to the app, which acts as a portal for online and offline payments. The technology news site reports the round will be led by Connect Ventures with Santander Ventures participating in the round.

From the Web

Ant Financial refiles for U.S. approval of MoneyGram deal
Reuters | Tue Jul 11, 2017 - Ant Financial, the affiliate of China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) that agreed to buy money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc (MGI.O) for $1.2 billion, has resubmitted the deal for U.S. review, people familiar with the matter said. The deal is the latest and most high-profile transaction to be refiled this year with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a secretive government panel which reviews acquisitions by foreign entities for potential national security risks. Ant Financial and MoneyGram refiled after they were unable to secure clearance from CFIUS within the maximum time of 75 days that is awarded for assessing applications, the sources said on Tuesday. Refiling resets the clock and gives up to another 75 days for the companies to complete the national security review and try to resolve potential issues.

Hackers have been stealing credit card numbers from Trump’s hotels for months
The Washington Post | Tue Jul 11, 2017 - Guests at 14 Trump properties, including hotels in Washington, New York and Vancouver, have had their credit card information exposed, marking the third time in as many years that a months-long security breach has affected customers of the chain of luxury hotels. The latest instance occurred between August 2016 and March 2017, according to a notice on the company’s website, and included guest names, addresses and phone numbers, as well as credit card numbers and expiration dates. The breach took place on the systems of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, a reservation booking service used by Trump Hotels, but did not compromise the Trump Hotels’ systems.

Revolut raises $66 million in venture capital investment; eyes expansion in Asia, US
CNBC | Wed Jul 12, 2017 – Fintech app Revolut has raised $66 million in a venture capital investment in order to expand its operations further across Asia and North America. The London-based business, which offers foreign currency to consumers abroad at the interbank rate available on the financial markets, raised the money in a Series B venture capital, bringing its total investments up to $83 million.

More from PaymentsSource

Bank rivals see a disruptive force in PSD2
Information sharing is about to get much different in Europe, giving bank alternatives such as Klarna more to work with as they compete against the financial services establishment.

P-to-P still has a drug problem: Report
Mobile and online P-to-P services may be the popular, mainstream payments service of choice for young people who don't prefer cash, but it also has a seedy underbelly, according to new survey data.

PayPal launches Global Sellers in U.S. to boost cross-border transactions
PayPal is launching a cross-border trade service to help small and mid-sized businesses in the U.S. improve their international presence and sales.

Why Visa, Mastercard tokenization plans worry merchants and processors
Since the late 1950s, processors and merchants have cast a wary eye toward the major card brands' fees and rules. As such, they believe they can spot warning signals when the card networks establish new rules or introduce new services.