Morning Brief 10.18.19: European regulators are the latest to delay strong authentication

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

Missed deadlines

Tougher identity security standards in Europe were supposed to go into effect in September, but that deadline for Strong Customer Authentication proved too difficult for many companies to meet — so some agencies started moving the goalposts.

The problem was the deadline relief wasn't the same for all jurisdictions, so the European Banking Authority has set a new deadline of December 31, 2020, which is designed to harmonize the overall migration, reports Finextra.

The EBA had already granted exceptions, though on a case-by-case basis, and required petitioners to submit a roadmap for compliance. There's still some variance, as U.K. Finance is pushing an additional year for hospitality and travel businesses.

Yuriko Nakao/Bloomberg

Who's only taking cash?

Mastercard has launched a campaign in India that invites consumers to "nominate" merchants that do not accept digital payments.

Mastercard in turn will work with local merchant acquirers and the Confederation of All India Traders, a trade group for Indian small businesses, to encourage the business to adopt digital payments.

Since India's government removed a large portion of the country's cash from circulation in 2016, companies have aggressively pushed payment technology. Mastercard has been at odds with the government at times, pushing back against India's local data storage requirements.

Going big in Indonesia

Boku has partnered with GoPay, Go-Jek's payments platform, to support digital payments for Boku's merchants in Indonesia.

GoPay processes about half of the payments made on Go-Jek's platform, which is expanding as Go-Jek diversifies its services and enters new markets following an investment from Visa.

Go-Jek's roots are in ride-sharing, though it has added more than 20 on-demand services such as food delivery and financial services.

A win for the machines

Machine learning is advancing in the U.K., with two-thirds of financial institutions adopting forms of artificial intelligence.

Payment-related risk is a big beneficiary, with anti-money laundering and payment fraud detection being primary back-office use cases, reports the Bank of England. Customer service and credit risk management are also using AI.

These are similar to common global use cases for AI, which has become widely used to streamline payment risk management, improve workflows for e-commerce transactions and aid credit unions' resource sharing.

From the web

Hashcash partners with UAE based global bank with its blockchain based Commercial Lending solutions
_{YAHOO FINANCE | Thu October 17, 2019}
HashCash has partnered with UAE Based Global Bank with its blockchain-based commercial lending solution. The introduction of blockchain to the Commercial Lending domain is expected to bring about tangible results for the financial ecosystem.

Cashless payments between Singapore, Taiwan possible with Liquid Group, E.SUN tie-up
_{THE BUSINESS TIMES | Thu October 17, 2019}
Singapore startup Liquid Group has opened the QR payments corridor between Singapore and Taiwan with its partnership with E.SUN Bank. This means consumers travelling between the two markets can now make cashless payments for their overseas purchases using their preferred domestic mobile payment apps, at participating merchants.

Venezuelan Migrants Are Using Bitcoin for Remittances, But There’s a Catch
_{COINDESK | Thu October 17, 2019}
With an estimated $3.7 billion in remittances sent in 2019, money from abroad is an increasingly large source of income for Venezuelan families. As such, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have assumed a larger role in facilitating cross-border transactions.

More from PaymentsSource

RBC fights the fintechs by Uber-izing mobile payments
Technology companies like Square and Stripe have nimbly captured small-business share from banks that often overlooked the segment. Royal Bank of Canada is trying to respond through a mix of merchant services, tied to the national debit system and incentive marketing.

Curve’s crowdfunding builds more crowd than funds
The track record of all-in-one cards is grim, but Curve contends the technology can be a viable competitor to neobanks or an accessory for open banking, checkout-free technology and crowdfunding.

Galileo raises $77 million to expand global card processing
Galileo has raised $77 million in its first round of venture capital funding backed by Accel and Ryan Smith, CEO of the software firm Qualtrics.

PayPal’s Synchrony pact gives rise to a Venmo credit card
Venmo’s P2P social payment app has become a major part of PayPal’s retail strategy, a play that’s getting a boost from a Synchrony co-branded credit card.