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Doubling down
Mastercard has battled Indian regulators recently, but that hasn't stopped the card network from pouring funds into the country's payment system.
Mastercard has invested more than $1 billion in India over the past few years, and is extending that commitment by investing another $1 billion over the next five years, reports
U.K. pay
The British Government's Global Entry Service will support Apple Pay and Google Pay for payments related to travel, such as the special fees required to gain expedited entry into the U.S from the U.K., online passenger disclosure fees, and electronic Visa waivers for people from the Middle East who are traveling to the U.K.
The U.K. already has its own payment app for these tasks, and adding Apple and Google makes the system more open, reports
The government hopes the move will reduce the need for travelers enter payment card information when using the gov.UK Pay service.
Remote menu
NCR has acquired Texas POS, a deal that allows NCR to take larger bite of the Houston-area restaurant market.
NCR also recently acquired JetPay to add software that supports remote merchant services and payments for restaurants and other verticals.
Pushing buttons
A long line of
Warren Buffet is no exception, as he demonstrated at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha, calling bitcoin a "gambling device," and a "seashell," reports
It's not unusual for Buffet to sound off on bitcoin. Almost exactly a year ago, he called bitcoin "
From the Web
Reuters | Mon May 6, 2019 - Japan’s SoftBank Group invested about $20 million in Mexican payments startup Clip early this year, one of its first Latin America deals as it launches a $5 billion technology fund in the region, said three people familiar with the matter. The technology conglomerate’s cash injection was part of a round that raised roughly $100 million, two of the people said last week.
Forbes | Mon May 6, 2019 - PIN-debit networks were once an innovation of electronic payments that freed people from the burden of having to carry cash. However, smaller networks are now hobbled by strong competition from incumbents and the next generation of disruptors. M&A could help them better compete with market leaders Visa and Mastercard.
China Daily | Tue May 7, 2019 - China's financial center Shanghai leads the country in digital payments in 2018, according to a report released at the second Digital China Summit on Monday in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian province. Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang province grabbed the second spot on the China mobile payment index list, followed by the capital city Beijing, the China Mobile Payment Development Report 2019 said as reported by Sina Finance on Tuesday.
More from PaymentsSource
Global cross-border payments network Thunes has completed a $10 million financing round led through global venture firm GGV Capital to boost its financial services efforts in emerging markets.
There’s no clear winner yet in the “war on cash,” so investment is flowing into technology that’s designed to accommodate a wide set of payment options that can still take cash along for the ride.
Mastercard hopes to tap into existing partnerships and clients from multiple business lines to combine services in a single menu for small to mid-sized businesses, a market where fintechs have made great strides over the past few years, enough to draw extra attention from established companies.
Data breaches are an ongoing problem that's getting worse given the recent news that a massive unprotected database of unclear ownership was found online, potentially exposing personal data for 80 million U.S. households.
