8.20.19 Your morning briefing

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

Not just Facebook

The People's Bank of China has been working on a digital currency project for about five years, with recent urgency coming from pressure to counter Facebook's Libra.

But the move could also ease the dominance of WeChat and Alipay, which control about 90% of China's mobile payments, reports Yahoo Finance, which based its reporting on research from DBS Group.

By using banks as the conversion agents, some retail depositors may switch their mobile payments to PBOC-issued digital cash. These would result in more funds in banks' deposit accounts. Alipay and Tencent additionally manage money market funds that now include some funds from mobile payment accounts. A portion of this money could go back into the banking system, according to Yahoo.

Shiho Fukada/Bloomberg

In transit

The Miami-Dade Metrorail system will start accepting Google Pay on Wednesday, a deployment that involves about two dozen stations.

After years of stagnation, contactless transit payments are accelerating quickly in the U.S., with New York, Denver, Portland and other cities adding the technology this year.

Google has enhanced its transit payments capabilities, collaborating with NXP to add cloud-based transactions for smartphones and wearables in the past year.

More retail

PayPal has integrated with SuiteRetail, which builds a point of sale system for NetSuite and SalesForce, a collaboration that's designed to grab share from traditional payment processors.

PayPal has made several moves over the years to expand its ability to serve retailers, including using its popular Venmo P2P app as a way to give retailers an additional option for checkout.

SuitePOS is aimed at higher volume retailers, giving PayPal an added channel to reach larger businesses.

Heavy metal

20-year-old cryptocurrency millionaire Erik Finman has invested in Metallicus, a startup that powers P2P payment system Metal.

Finman and Metal plan to build a cryptocurrency finance portal that includes asset exchange, social payments and digital financial services, reports CoinDesk.

Metal Pay uses mobile phone numbers to execute transactions, and its MTL cryptocurrency can be converted to dollars on its app and used as a "game" to encourage savings.

From the Web

WhatsApp in talks to launch mobile payments in Indonesia: sources
_{The Business Times | Tue August 20, 2019}
Facebook Inc's messaging service WhatsApp is in talks with multiple Indonesian digital payment firms to offer their mobile transaction services, in a bid to tap the nation's fast-growing e-commerce sector, people familiar with the matter said.

Bank of Ireland says issues with credit card systems are fixed
_{The Irish Times | Mon August 19, 2019}
Bank of Ireland said it has resolved issues that had affected its credit card system on Monday, leaving customers unable to access their statements and balances. AIB was also reporting problems with customers complaining that they could not access credit card account information.

BitPay Says Crypto Spending on Real Estate to Double in 2019
_{CoinDesk | Mon August 19, 2019}
A luxury condominium complex in Orlando, Florida, is the latest firm to partner with BitPay to provide bitcoin payment processing for real estate transactions. The Grove Resort & Water Park will accept bitcoin for purchases of their 878 resort-style condo residences.

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Libra's risk hurts crypto payments more than it helps
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