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Smaller footprint
The decline in cash is causing the Bank of England to reconsider its facilities requirements, including reducing physical locations that manage paper bills in circulation.
The bank will close its Leeds cash distribution center in 2023 when its lease expires, ending a run of 196 years in which Leeds has hosted a cash center. It's part of a larger examination of how many offices the BofE will maintain, and how it will hire and deploy staff at its network of offices, reports
The pandemic has heightened the move away from cash, and the BofE believes a reduction in physical cash management centers is warranted.
Digital exam
Norway's central bank will begin testing technology to support a central bank digital currency over the next two years.
The bank is motivated by the growing number of countries that are experimenting or testing digital currencies and the decline of cash usage in Norway, where paper money represents a very small percentage of overall payments, reports
Norway did not give a timeline for formal launch. Neighboring Sweden is expected to launch its digital currency in the next five years.
Remote work
Payment technology company Rapyd will partner with HR firm Lano to add remote payroll to Lano's mix of hiring, onboarding and management for firms that employ international remote staff.
Lano's footprint covers 5,000 cities in 150 countries. The Rapyd integration will support "own currency" payroll in more than 50 currencies.
Rapyd hopes to address a trend of workers who are moving more frequently, citing Microsoft research that found 46% of workers plan to relocate because of work-from-home flexibility; and research from LinkedIn that found remote job postings have increased 500% in the past year.
Bureau chief
Revolut has hired Paroma Chatterjee to be its CEO in India, following up on a multi-million pound investment to expand the company's local payments and financial services business.
Chatterjee has extensive experience in India's e-commerce industry, serving in executive roles at Lendingkart, Via.com, Flipkart and Airtel Money. At Revolut, she will lead the fintech's Indian subsidiary, hire the management team and supervise license applications.
Revolut plans to add 300 people in India, and also intends to use the Indian operation as an operations hub to support the London-headquartered fintech's expansion plans in other parts of the world.
From the web
BLOOMBERG | Thursday, April 22, 2021
Widespread adoption could fuel charges the company aims to eliminate cashiers. Amazon denies that, saying it created thousands of grocery jobs.
TECHCRUNCH | Thursday, April 22, 2021
Brazilian mobile payments app PicPay filed on Wednesday an F-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an IPO valued at up to $100 million. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol PICS.
TECHCRUNCH April 22, 2021
To meet the surge in demand, Sift said today it has raised $50 million in a funding round that values the company at over $1 billion. Insight Partners led the financing, which included participation from Union Square Ventures and Stripes.
More from PaymentsSource
Long after the pandemic is finally behind us, the many security and financial benefits owners, management companies and fans alike receive from having the technology in place will remain too invaluable to ignore, says Corsight's Robb Watts.
Affirm's deal to buy Returnly emphasizes the need to simplify the process when a point-of-sale lender stands between the consumer and merchant.
Discover Financial Services executives say they will cautiously approach new acquisitions and technology or marketing investments, despite an upbeat first quarter.
On its path to diversify beyond check printing, Deluxe has agreed to purchase Texas-based merchant services firm First American Payment Systems for $960 million.
More than 50 countries support Apple Pay, which launched seven years ago, but adoption still lags in certain developed regions including Israel, Mexico and South Africa.
Digital currencies are becoming mainstream, with advancements in several areas that the financial industry needs to be aware of.
Changing payment habits and two rounds of stimulus funds helped drive Discover Financial Services' profitability in the first quarter of 2021.
The New York bank, which holds deposits for the stablecoin firm Circle and enables payments for the smart contract provider GreenBox, wants to provide loans to crypto firms as well.
Accounts payable is one of the most paper-intensive business functions, with lots of room for more environmentally sound processing, says Medius' Daniel Ball.
Coinbase's public listing came quickly on the heels of the ride-sharing app Grab announcing plans to go public through a deal that could value it at nearly $40 billion. They're just two examples of companies taking advantage of the past year's rush to digital payments to raise billions in the stock market.
Payments technology provider FIS is expanding its processing services into the growing markets of Malaysia, South Africa and Nigeria.
Citi’s commercial banking clients may eliminate more checks by sending funds directly to consumers’ debit or prepaid card accounts through an integration with Mastercard Send.
Two years after the country laid out plans for an instant-payments service backed by Saudi Arabia’s central bank, the project has gone live through a collaboration with Mastercard’s Vocalink and IBM.
Most industries and businesses continue to face a number of challenges, some carried over from 2020 and others new to 2021. The payments industry is no exception to this. In difficult times it is even more important to understand our key challenges, so we are able to manage and overcome them.
Banks face increasing competition from fintechs, third-party lenders and large technology companies as customer demands evolve, says Mastercard's Fabrizio Burlando.
Cardholders get a discount, but anyone can use the issuer's new airport lounge — even kids.
Through the launch of Apple Card Family, consumers can now combine credit lines to better build a credit history, while parents can build in guidelines for younger card users in the family.
Venmo may be slow to add cryptocurrency support behind Visa, Mastercard and even its parent company, PayPal — but it serves a younger and more tech-savvy audience that may be more willing to use digital currencies for payments.
Top executives from the 49 companies that earned a spot in this year's ranking of the Best Fintechs to Work For cite the need for nimble shifts in business strategy, leadership style and recruiting tactics among the lessons they took away from the challenges of the coronavirus crisis.
