The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
What is Libra?
Facebook is openly discussing its planned cryptocurrency and blockchain platform, Libra, which is set to launch in 2020. It plans for Libra to be used both online and offline, with initial use cases focused around P2P,
The end goal is to treat Libra as a mainstream cryptocurrency, backed by a reserve of assets, the article said. It has formed the Libra Association with 27 partners including Coinbase, Mastercard, Visa, eBay, PayPal, Stripe, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, and Vodafone.
Facebook is also launching a subsidiary called Calibra, which will maintain a digital wallet of the same name that will tie into Messenger and WhatsApp, The Verge reports.
Race to stay open
While
The bank also plans to add the ability to make payments and move money from other banks' accounts via Lloyds' open banking platform, reports
Driverless pizza
Domino's quick-serve model leads it to latch onto innovation quickly, so autonomous cars are a natural fit.
The chain is partnering with Nuro, a Houston-based autonomous vehicle startup, for a pilot in the Houston area. Consumers will opt in at checkout and can chose a self-driving option at the point of sale, reports
Domino's recently added
Getting the message
Two dozen financial institutions have pledged to back EBA Clearing's pan-European request-to-pay (R2P) system, giving support to a real-time messaging system to speed overall payment processing.
The EBA's system is scheduled to go live by the end of 2020 and will be aligned with the European Payments Council's request to pay initiative, reports
R2P is a more transparent expansion of electronic bill payment and presentment that enables payers to approve or decline a payment request in real time and choose a specific payment method. EBA contends a request to pay standard is an important part of building a real-time payment system for both consumers and businesses.
USAA, Pete Kight bet on billing
Real-time bill pay technology firm BillGO has drawn a new round of funding, with military-focused financial institution USAA and CheckFree founder Pete Kight among the backers.
BillGO provides check conversion, digital presentment and billing, and real-time payments. USAA often adopts new financial technology given the mobility of its customers, which are frequently deployed away from their primary residence.
Kight founded CheckFree in the 1980s, and the firm added payments and bank technology throughout the 1990s, making it an early fintech rival to traditional banking.
From the Web
The Business Times | Mon June 17, 2019 - Financial technology (fintech) investments in South-east Asia have shifted from digital payments and mobile wallets to wealth management, insurance and peer-to-peer financing since 2017, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report.
TechCrunch | Mon June 17, 2019 - MobiKwik, a mobile wallet app in India that has expanded to add several financial services in recent years, said it plans to enter international markets as it approaches profitability with the local operation. The company is kick-starting its overseas ambitions with cross-border mobile top-ups support.
CoinDesk | Mon June 17, 2019 - Breez, a non-custodial wallet and payment platform, is launching its services for the iPhone. This is the first payment project built on Neutrino, a bitcoin lightning network client, according to the company.
More from PaymentsSource
Target in the past 48 hours suffered a pair of unrelated point of sale outages that had at least one thing in common — they resulted in consumers scrambling for a contingency that would have been little problem as recently as four or five years ago.
As both large payment processors and fintechs are attracted to the market opportunity presented as B2B transactions start to digitize, one vendor hopes to stand out with an AI-based workflow.
Spanish bank BBVA and duty-free travel retailer Dufry are partnering to accept mobile payments from China's WeChat Pay at the Madrid airport.
The fraud challenge faced by issuers and merchants alike has become increasingly complex over the last few years with the prevalence of e-commerce and cross-border payments. Visa's response to these trends has benefited heavily from the global scale it got by reabsorbing Visa Europe in 2016.
