7.10.19 Your morning briefing

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

Breach costs

U.K. regulators will fine Marriott about $123 million over a breach that exposed data for as many as 383 million consumers, including passport numbers and credit card records.

Marriott plans to appeal any fine, reports CNN, adding the levy comes under GDPR, which allows fines of up to 4% of a company's revenue. The Marriott fine would be about 3% of the hotel chain's revenue, according to TechCrunch.

The Marriot fine, announced by the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office, comes shortly after the ICO announced a $230 million penalty against British Airways over a breach that exposed travel booking and payment records for about 500,000 consumers.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Ad blocking

The Dutch Data Protection Authority has told Dutch banks they are not allowed to use payment data for personalized direct marketing.

Consumers have been complaining about bank plans to engage in payment data-related marketing, according to a translation of the authority's letter, which adds payments data gives a complete picture of a consumer's life and as such is an important part of bank privacy rules.

The authority did not identify the bank, though Dutch News reports ING has plans to use payment data for direct marketing. The news site quotes the bank as saying it's "in talks" with the authority about its privacy letter and it's currently not using payments data to inform direct marketing.

Transit boost

There are signs commuters are adopting the myriad transit payment technologies deployed over the past few months.

Uber reports more than 1,200 Denver transit tickets have been sold through its app, with growth expanding by an average of 42% each week since the limited limited launch of Uber's Denver transit partnership in early May. By the end of June, Uber became available on 100% of Denver's network.

New York's contactless payments pilot on portions of the Lexington Avenue subway line also recently got off to a fast start earlier this summer. Large payment companies such as Mastercard and Apple are relying on transit modernization to boost overall usage of contactless payments.

Getting fit

The CPI Card Group and NextID's FitPay will collaborate to build payment technology for Flip, FitPay's contactless device.

Flip will support payments at merchants that accept contactless payments, and will accompany FitPay's digital wallet, which stores funds from standard bank accounts and crypto currency.

FitPay has been developing its contactless technology for several months, utilizing an NFC antenna. FitPay has also collaborated with Discover to build wearable technology.

From the Web

Remitly raises $220M to expand from money transfers to financial services, now at ~$1B valuation
TechCrunch | Tue July 9, 2019 - When it comes to financial services in emerging markets, remittances continues to be one of the biggest. Remitly, one of the bigger startups providing these services, is announcing that it has raised $220 million in funding to ride that wave.

This Startup Has A Master Plan For Taking Bitcoin Payments Mainstream
Forbes | Tue July 9, 2019 - While the Lightning Network makes Bitcoin payments more practical, it appears more consumers need to be holding Bitcoin in order for more widespread merchant adoption to make sense. This is where Lolli thinks they can provide a solution via their master plan to bring Bitcoin payments to the masses.

US tech provider Stripe eyes growth in Asia’s fragmented digital payments market
South China Morning Post | Tue July 9, 2019 - Asia’s fragmented digital payments market might seem a daunting challenge for online companies to expand globally, but US firm Stripe considers that a huge opportunity to grow its business in the region.

More from PaymentsSource

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