Morning Brief 6.23.20: PayPal may add support for crypto

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

Venmo crypto

PayPal and Venmo reportedly plan to support sales of cryptocurrencies, which would create an addressable market of more than 320 million users.

PayPal can already be used to withdraw funds from crypto exchanges, so what's new is direct crypto purchases and a wallet for storage, reports CoinDesk, adding the service would be ready in about three months. PayPal did not comment on its plans.

It's a move that echoes Square, which supports investing in cryptocurrencies while developing other use cases via an internal team. PayPal has also placed recruitment ads for cryptocurrency experts such as engineers. PayPal was initially part of Facebook's Libra before departing in 2019.

Bloomberg News

Tech journey

Diebold Nixdorf has extended its strategic relationship with Accenture through 2023 as part of Diebold Nixdorf's ongoing effort to add more cloud and digital technology to its range of financial services products.

Diebold Nixdorf's corporate IT systems will move to the cloud, and the two firms will also increase use of agile product development, which Accenture tied to business recovery due to the pandemic and economic recession.

ATM and point of sale manufacturers are under pressure from fintechs, which at Diebold Nixdorf has led to a corporate restructuring and multi-year technology diversification strategy.

New clips

Apple announced several updates during a virtual version of its developer conference, including streamlined software that connects consumers with businesses.

Called App Clips, the concept is to create 10mb micro-apps that can be launched instantly without first going to the App Store. Consumers can tap an NFC tile or scan a QR code to pull up an App Clip at a business, accessing the clip via Apple's sign-in and paying through Apple Pay.

The technology is reminiscent of Instant Apps, a feature Google launched on Android in 2016, but Apple's version has a greater focus on payments.

Transit gateway

St. Louis has added mobile payments for its light rail and bus systems, more closely tying ticketing to existing mobile features that support trip planning.

The local transit authority is linking the move to the coronavirus pandemic, saying it wants to encourage a contactless experience for riders.

Transit usage has started to recover as cities reopen — New York reports a rise in transit usage of about a third over the past two weeks — drawing attention to the potential for transit technology to digitize payments.

From the Web

Square, Jack Dorsey’s Pay Service, Is Withholding Money Merchants Say They Need
_{THE NEW YORK TIMES | Tue June 23, 2020}
Thousands of small enterprises that use Square to process their credit card transactions have complained that the company recently began holding back 20 to 30 percent of the money they collected from customers with little warning. A Square spokesman said it would publish a blog post on Tuesday to explain its new “rolling reserve” policy, the one that some merchants have experienced.

Jack Ma’s Fintech Giant Ant to Drop ‘Financial’ From Its Name
_{THE WALL STREET JOURNAL | Mon June 22, 2020}
Ant Financial Services Group said it received approval from China’s top business and commerce regulator to change its name to Ant Technology Group Co. in its business-registration records.

Crooks abuse Google Analytics to conceal theft of payment card data
_{ARS TECHNICA | Tue June 23, 2020}
Researchers from Kaspersky Lab on Monday revealed that hackers are abusing Google Analytics so that they can more covertly siphon stolen credit card data out of infected ecommerce sites

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