The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Who's "smartest"?
So far, it appears Google Assistant is the best at understanding shopping and payment related commands, even though Amazon, which has Alexa, is more closely tied to retail as a core business. Google Assistant correctly answered 92% of commerce questions, such as ordering, reports
Overall, Google Assistant answered 93% of the questions correctly, with Siri answering 83% and Alexa answering 80% correctly, which CNBC reports is an improvement for all three.
Grocery hack
Grocery chain Hy-Vee suffered a security compromise at fuel pumps, drive-thru coffee shops and restaurant card readers.
The chain did not disclose the scope of the breach, but said it does not believe point of sale systems inside grocery stores, drug stores and convenience stores were impacted because the systems use higher end-encryption, reports
Hy-Vee detected the unusual activity in its payment processing systems in late July, and hired a cybersecurity firm to investigate. It also notified law enforcement and the card networks.
Shared space biometrics
All Work & Social is collaborating with Fingopay to support biometric payments at the shared workspace company's facility in the U.K.
Early deployments for the company's technology include a Costcutter supermarket location near Brunel University and the Copenhagen Business School.
Contactless charity expands
London is installing contactless donation points in the financial district to raise funds to combat homelessness.
People can tap contactless cards at four locations to donate to the Beam charity for a three month test, with more locations added if the trial is successful, reports
From the Web
CoinDesk | Mon August 19, 2019 - Spanish megabank Santander Group is expanding its use of Ripple’s technology. The bank is building a “payment corridor” that would let customers in Latin America send money to the U.S. instantly for free via One Pay FX, a mobile app that uses Ripple’s xCurrent software.
Yahoo Finance | Fri August 16, 2019 - Verve, a payments technology company and Interswitch’s card scheme in Africa, and Discover Global Network, the payments brand of Discover, held an event to launch the Verve Global Card. Cardholders will now have the ability to use their Verve Global Cards on the Discover Global Network which provides acceptance at millions of merchants globally.
Forbes | Fri August 16, 2019 - Chinese internet giant Alibaba has agreed to buy NetEase’s cross-border e-commerce unit Kaola for $2 billion, as it seeks to bolster its efforts to cater to local demand for quality products from abroad, reported Beijing-based business publication Caixin.
More from PaymentsSource
For many entrants in the integrated receivables space, payment data is the foundation for nearly every other business process or decision. Increasingly, banks are latching onto data services and making them available to their small and midsize business clients.
The Apple Card is an oddity. As a credit card it's little different from the many other co-branded cards on the market. But as a technology, the Apple Card bundles together several features that are much rarer.
Siemens Mobility has announced it’s working with Bytemark, a company Siemens partially owns, to develop a payment solution enabling riders to pay once for a trip across the city using multiple public and private modes of transit, from buses to scooters.
Kenneth Montgomery, a longtime executive at the Federal Reserve, will lead the central bank’s development of its newly planned real-time payment system.
