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Hong Kong opens up, to keep up
The
The HKMA expects banks to deploy initial APIs within 6 months and will publish its own API on July 23. About 130 sets of payment and financial data will be available as part of the open banking process.
The rules are similar to
Green light
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved Mastercard's plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% in line with the Paris Climate Agreement goals.
Mastercard is the first payments industry company to receive approval from the SBTi, which is a collaboration between the United Nations, the WWF and other industries. It's also one of about 110 companies globally to get the nod.
Mastercard has deployed on-site solar generation, purchased renewable energy and has received LEED certification for all of its owned corporate campuses.
EMV crime fighting bot
Digital identity firm Socure has unveiled Aida, a bot to vet online transactions.
Socure is responding to what it says are changes in payment fraud that have resulted from the
Aida uses artificial intelligence to process billions of online and offline data points to validate the authenticity of digital identities in real time.
Contactless battles homelessness
Contactless payments in the U.K. can be used for
The Cambridge City Council has installed giving points, or contactless terminals that support card or mobile contactless payments.
The donations go toward grants of about $1,000 to support bank account opening, mobile phone payments and rent deposits.
From the Web
Reuters | Thu July 19, 2018 - Swiss regulators are stepping up efforts to halt an exodus of cryptocurrency projects from the country, after two of only a handful of banks active in the nascent sector shut their doors on it in the last year. While crypto-related business in Switzerland is tiny compared with its traditional banking sector, it has grown rapidly and employs hundreds of people, according to local officials.
China Daily | Thu July 19, 2018 - China saw fast expansion in the number of mobile payment users last year, reaching 527 million at the end of 2017, according to an internet industry report. The number of mobile payment users increased by 57.83 million in 2017, 12.3-percent growth, the Internet Society of China said in the report.
CBS News | Thu July 19, 2018 - Credit card companies are pressuring on gas stations across the nation, urging them to update their card systems to prevent skimming. Credit card giants like Visa and MasterCard set a deadline for 2020 for gas stations, to either upgrade their security equipment or get higher credit card processing fees.
More from PaymentsSource
Starbucks achieved rapid adoption of its mobile card app by building it on top of the highly successful Starbucks closed-loop gift card. Such a model could also apply to the cannabis market, which is largely shunned by mainstream banks and card networks.
With the advent of the quantum computing, current encryption algorithms stand to be broken, and all of our data could be vulnerable as a result, writes Malte Pollmann, CEO of Utimaco.
U.S. Bancorp reported record net income of $1.7 billion for the second quarter on record net revenue of $5.6 billion, and corporate payments growth stood out as a key driver.
India's regulatory approach shows it's serious about supporting myriad international payment technology plays, in contrast to China's doing the bare minimum to satisfy international pressure for openness.
