The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Augmented reality under glass
PayPal is making a renewed push at receiving a
Web connected glasses have been tried before, most notably
Soft launch
Mastercard and Polish electronic payment company ePlatnosci are testing SoftPOS, which enables retailers to accept contactless payments with a smartphone.
Ripple's payment network gets bigger
FairFX, RationalFX and Exchange4Free are new clients from the U.K.; while UniPAY in Georgia and MoneyMatch in Asia have also joined Ripple's base.
The payment companies will use xVia, an application programming interface, to manage connections with banks on behalf of the payers.
The mother of necessity
The city's Intellectual Property Office is speeding the time for patent applications to encourage innovation, reports
The initiative has a particular focus on electronic payments and blockchain applications, as well as security and fraud prevention.
Real-time business
Singapore's technology status is also on display as an initial market for DBS's real-time cross-border payment tracking engine.
The bank's clients in Singapore and Hong Kong will have access to a Swift Global Payments Innovation-powered engine that specializes in digital processing for corporate and small to medium sized businesses. More than 200,000 businesses will be among the initial participants.
China, India, Indonesia and Taiwan will be added during the next few months, according to DBS.
From the Web
Reuters | Fri Apr 27, 2018 - Reports to Switzerland’s money-laundering watchdog hit a record last year, including one cluster of cases involving 7 billion Swiss francs ($7 billion), the agency reported on Friday. The Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS) handled nearly 4,700 cases of suspicious activity worth more than 16.4 billion francs in all, once again led by suspected bribery, it said in its annual report.
China Daily | Sat Apr 28, 2018 - China must make great efforts to develop core technologies such as blockchain to better serve the real economy and promote healthy development of the overall blockchain market and ecosystem at the same time, said a central bank official on Thursday. "Conducting deep research on blockchain is the right thing for China to do to develop financial technology, as blockchain is an emerging technology that may become the future financial infrastructure," said Yao Qian, director-general of the Institute of Digital Money at the People's Bank of China.
Wired | Sun Apr 29, 2018 - Whether it is Cambridge Analytica gaining access to private information on up to 87 million Facebook users, or the large-scale data breaches at Equifax or Yahoo, alarmingly loose standards for the use and protection of customer data continue to fuel a backlash against large tech companies. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica saga has triggered much-needed debates over the necessity for greater regulation and the potential breakups of de facto monopolies. But these debates will lead nowhere if the global community doesn't manage to tackle the main challenge of how to treat and govern customer data.
More from PaymentsSource
Often thought of as the Square of Europe, iZettle is working to sprint ahead of its American rival.
Younger consumers are more willing to shop around compared to previous generations, and the on-demand economy means there is an expectation of instant gratification, writes Julian Wallis, retail director at Rambus.
Square has come a long way since it debuted in 2009 with a simple plastic card reader for micro-merchants. But it didn't make its journey alone.
Bill payment proved too unwieldy for Intuit’s personal finance app Mint, and the feature will be discontinued in June, about 18 months after it launched.
