5.11.18 Your morning briefing

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

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:

Australia spars with banks over 'open banking'
Australian banks are trying to delay PSD2-style data sharing rules, a move that has drawn the ire of the government, which has set a one-year timetable for the migration.

Finextra reports the government has rejected attempts by banks to delay plans for open banking and limit the scope by excluding lending products entirely. The Australian Banking Association contends open banking for lending creates expense and security issues.

The government has rejected the banks' proposal, so institutions will be required to pass on transaction, deposit and card data to other accredited financial service providers by July 2019. Regulators did delay the mortgage data sharing deadline to February 2020 and personal loans to July 2020.

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Smartwatch payments win friends in Europe
Garmin's watch payments technology has attracted bank support in Europe, including U.K. startup bank Starling, which joins Danske, which was already supporting Garmin's watch for payments reports The Register.

Garmin has also attracted bank support in Australia. Fitbit is a little ahead of Garmin in Europe, where it has signed Santander as well as Danske and Starling.

Canadian cooperation
It's not unusual for Canadian payment companies and banks to cooperate on national innovation projects, an effort that extends to security.

Working through the national Payments Canada consortium, Canada's central bank and the country's six largest lenders strengthen the country's payments ecosystem to protect against hacks.

The consortium says the data breach and fraud threat have reached a level where individual bank protection is no longer adequate.

Around the world in two minutes
Blockchain company and faster cross-border payments enabler Ripple has finished work on a pilot that attempts to execute real-time international transfers.

The company reports xRapid, which is built on the company's XRP digital asset, has completed transactions in a few seconds, though the need for local electronic payment rails will increase that speed to about two minutes in most cases. Blockchain has enabled same-day transfers over the traditional correspondent-bank led system in which transactions often took several days to settle.

Ripple also contends it can cut up to 70% from the cost of remittance payments in the U.S.-to-Mexico corridor over the average broker transfer. Ripple envisions xRapid as a corporate payments gateway, though it also pushing the product for financial inclusion.

From the Web

Cryptocurrencies as a payment system are 'troubling," Bank of America tech officer says
CNBC | Thu May 10, 2018 - Cryptocurrencies are standing in the way of authorities catching "bad guys" who are using payment systems for nefarious purposes, a Bank of America official said Thursday. Addressing a key criticism of bitcoin and its growing list of competitors, Cathy Bessant, BofA's chief technical officer, said it's important to differentiate the two major uses of digital currencies.

Fintech Giant Hiding In Plain Sight
Forbes | Thu May 10, 2018 - While startups get most of the attention in fintech, the monumental task of converting the $17 trillion of global cash and check transactions into digital payments remains one of the most persistent opportunities in finance. Owning Visa, which began life as BankAmericard in 1958, is a great way to play this trend. In addition to the movement away from cash and checks, the Foster City, California, company also benefits as retail spending moves online.

Alibaba acquiring big online retailer in southern Asia
China Daily | Thu May 10, 2018 - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is spreading its wings further into South Asia by acquiring the region's largest e-commerce platform. The buyout of Daraz Group, for an undisclosed amount, will make the company a wholly owned unit of Alibaba, following in its footsteps of recent purchases in shopping portals and digital wallets across the region.

More from PaymentsSource

As PSD2 threatens revenue, banks deploy new tech
Europe's PSD2 data-sharing standards are meant to foster cooperation in the market, but banks are getting more competitive as they seek to plug a revenue drain the new rules threaten.

Cyber attackers will probably succeed. It's a proactive response that matters.
The correct strategy needs to be built around the mindset that the attackers might eventually succeed, and that with the right tools, the breach can be detected early, the extent of it can be controlled, and the attack can be stopped before a lot of damage is inflicted, writes Engin Kirda, a professor of computer science at Northeastern University.

Will Wells Fargo hurt Zelle by improving on it?
The irony of the explosive growth of mobile P2P is this: As consumers get more comfortable with paying one another through mobile devices, they're thinking of P2P less as a service that one should find within a bank's app.

Data: China's colossal digital marketplace
China hasn't exactly opened its arms wide to embrace U.S. payments companies, but the nation has gradually become more accepting of the foreign payments businesses that view its tech-savvy population as a lucrative market.