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PayPal in India: PayPal will drastically expand its payment services in India in the next week, reports the Economic Times, citing unnamed sources. It's a move that would create yet another player in an already crowded market. PayPal currently offers only cross-border payments in India for merchants and others selling abroad. The company will reportedly add an app that supports payments inside the country. PayPal will serve as an aggregator, collaborating with Indian banks to offer electronic payments to consumers. The Economic Times reports PayPal has not applied for a prepaid payments instrument license from the government to operate a digital wallet, but could offer payments through India's United Payments Interface. Since the government removed most of India's cash, the country has become a target for dozens of digital payment companies from around the world, including Google, Facebook, Flipkart, Paytm, Amazon and others.
PayPal signage is displayed in front of eBay Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. EBay Inc. is spinning off its PayPal division, heeding demands by activist shareholder Carl Icahn and giving the business independence it can use to contend with rising competition from Apple Inc. and Google Inc. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Mobile's big holiday: Mobile payments set a record during Black Friday in 2016, but the channel is set for even greater gains this year. Mobile visits to retailer websites should exceed desktop visits in November and December, reports TechCrunch, citing data from Adobe, which uses machine learning and data analytics to produce its forecasts. Desktop shopping should still make up the majority of the revenue, at 66%, but that's down 6% from 2016. Smartphone shopping revenue will jump to 26% from 9% in 2016. Tablets will account for 10% of the revenue this holiday shopping season, down from 19% in 2016. The trends fit overall use, reports TechCrunch, which adds mobile internet usage passed desktop usage for the first time in November 2016, and many of the largest U.S. retailers reported record mobile shopping during 2016's holiday period.
Phish pit stop: Santander recently found there have been 600 million attempted payment scams, card fraud attempts and general phishing attacks in the past 12 months in the U.K. alone, prompting a marketing campaign involving Formula One driver Jenson Button and a vehicle called Santander's Phish & Chips van, reports EaterLondon. Noting that the 600 million phishing attacks over email, text and phone comes out to 1.6 million per day, the van is serving more than 3,000 fish and chips to the public. While the move has the appearance of a stunt, Reza Attar-Zadeh, head of customer experience for Santander in the U.K., told the food site that Santander takes the fight against fraud "very seriously, and it has seen the life-changing impact it can have on people's lives, and consumer awareness is one of the keys to tackling the problem. Santander also found nearly three quarters of British adults have been targeted by financial and payments fraud scammers.
Who goes there? Beyond race car drivers, payment fraud prevention options are proliferating as the threat expands, and Lloyds is introducing a new scam blocker designed to prevent people from being tricked into false transfers to phony accounts. Consumers will be prompted to answer security questions before setting up online payments, and the answers will be fed into a detection system that's designed to predict fraud beforehand. Lloyds reports it has blocked more than 250,000 attempts to impersonate customers in the past two years, but crooks are now using authorized "push payment fraud," which tricks users into thinking they are conversing with banks, police or service providers. The questions are designed to challenge the person sending the initial communication to prove their validity.
From the Web
AMP among companies affected by data breach of 50,000 staff records The Guardian | Thu Nov 2, 2017 - The personal details of more than 4,000 government employees have been exposed in a massive data breach of 50,000 staff records from various companies across Australia. 3,000 employees at the Department of Finance, 1,470 at the Australian Electoral Commission and 300 at the National Disability Insurance Agency had their personal records left openly accessible after a third-party contractor misconfigured an Amazon S3 bucket – a commonly used form of cloud storage. The information included credit card numbers and passwords of some employees, as well as full names, phone numbers and email addresses. Some records also contained details of staff salaries and expenses.
Alibaba sales beat estimates on 'outstanding' quarter, raises forecast Reuters | Thu Nov 2, 2017 - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd hailed an “outstanding quarter” on Thursday and raised its outlook for the year after beating forecasts with a 61 percent revenue rise driven by strong growth in online sales. The beat points to the Chinese group’s success as it expands from its core online retail business with investments in supermarkets and stores, amid growing competition in e-commerce. Alibaba’s Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said in a filing that a recent push into offline services and a number of recent bricks-and-mortar deals had helped contribute to its growth.
HSBC, Hang Seng Bank are now Samsung Pay partners Networks Asia | Fri Nov 3, 2017 - HSBC and Hang Seng Bank have officially become Samsung Pay partners. Starting from 2 November 2017, both issuers will support Samsung Pay for their consumer credit cards. Supporting Near Field Communication (NFC) and proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technologies, Samsung Pay is accepted by vendors and offers users a secure mobile payment service.
More from PaymentsSource
Self-driving car tech takes aim at financial fraud Neural network systems — which try to emulate the human brain — will become increasingly important as the stolen identities from the recent Equifax breach and others start surfacing in the coming years on fraudulent payment card or loan applications.
It is possible to turn payments into cross-selling in the Amazon age Over time, a small to medium sized business' employees can learn customers’ needs and deftly toggle between soft and hard cross-sells at the perfect time, writes Michael Hiskey, chief marketing officer of Semarchy.
Amex to update SafeKey with new 3-D Secure specs American Express will launch its next generation of online authentication system, SafeKey 2.0, early next year with support for biometrics technology and mobile commerce.
First Northwest Bancorp is parting ways with CEO Matt Deines "by mutual agreement," the Port Angeles, Washington-based company said. Deines' departure comes a month after a hedge fund sued, alleging the lender was complicit in a Ponzi scheme.
Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said that criticisms of the Fed's balance sheet and calls to return to a scarce reserves system are misinformed, saying that much of the central bank's balance sheet is the result of activities outside the Fed's control.
The Federal Reserve Thursday issued a proposal that would allow banks to be considered "well managed" even if they are found to be deficient in their governance and controls.
The digital bank had previously notified about 1,000 business customers that they would lose access to their debit cards for a week, amid a systems update.
Jonathan Gould, who's worked in the crypto industry and has advocated for more fintech and crypto-friendly regulation of banks, was confirmed by the Senate Thursday. He is expected to both continue deregulating the banking sector and encouraging bank-fintech partnerships.
