The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Ride-share battle
Ride-sharing app
In a new move, Grab will invest several hundred million dollars to extend its mix of payments and financial services in Vietnam, reports
Grab is under pressure to extend services beyond ride-sharing, and faces a well-heeled rival in Go-Jek.
VC for India's digital migration
New Delhi startup BharatPe has raised $50 million from San Francisco-based Ribbit Capital and London-based Steadview Capital for its combination of digital payments and merchant credit.
The funding brings BharatPe's valuation to $225 million, reports
New installment
Afterpay plans to add Ulta Beauty and J. Crew to its installment payment network, which serves fashion and beauty retailers.
The company enables retailers to offer immediate receipt with payments spread over four installments, with no fees for consumers who pay on time.
More payment companies are offering installments as an alternative to credit cards, particularly given the product's
The dark side
Google's Android 10 updates will include a dark mode for several apps, including Google Pay.
The mode is designed to make it easier to see features on the app at night, such as the rendering of a payment card or recent transactions, reports
From the Web
COINDESK | Tue August 27, 2019
The team at Loom is releasing a new, free CryptoZombies course. It’s designed so that anyone can learn the basics of working with the Libra codebase that Facebook has already released. Facebook announced in June its plan to create a new global stablecoin along with dozens of partners from major companies.
TECHCRUNCH | Tue August 27, 2019
Festicket, the U.K.-headquartered festival booking platform, has acquired U.K.-based ticketing and cashless point-of-sale (POS) platform Event Genius. The sale also includes Event Genius’s consumer facing brand, Ticket Arena, while further terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed.
COINDESK | Mon August 26, 2019
Swiss financial authority FINMA offered guidance this week on anti-money laundering (AML) requirements for blockchain-based companies even as it granted broker-dealer licenses to two new blockchain companies. FINMA considers AML to be “technology-neutral” and expects all payments, including blockchain transactions, to follow the requirements.
More from PaymentsSource
It's unclear whether the Trump administration can or will declare a national emergency as part of the trade dispute between the U.S. and China, but the discourse alone could disrupt major business relationships that involve American retailers, payment companies and Chinese firms.
Apple Card made its public launch last week, and executives at Extend — a virtual card platform provider that has nothing to do with Apple's product — couldn't be more pleased.
WASHINGTON—House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and a bipartisan congressional delegation met with Swiss government officials last week to discuss Facebook’s plans to launch and operate a digital currency, but the congresswoman remains skeptical of the project.
As data breaches continue to threaten brands, reputations and bottom lines, PCI compliance is an indicator that enterprise data security leveraging distributed ledger architecture is no longer just a concept, but is now in the hands of business.
