The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:
Digital dominator
Keys to the company’s strong growth for the quarter were the influx of new users, new merchants, consumers who had never used e-commerce before and the general market shift of physical sales to a digital environment.
“This is our time and we intend to seize the moment,” said CEO Dan Schulman in a Wednesday earnings call. “Our products and services have never been more important and we are ready and well-positioned to capture the opportunities that lie ahead of us."
On the Hill
Under questioning at Wednesday's Congressional hearing on technology competition, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said it's possible his company has violated its own policy against mining third party sellers' data to develop Amazon projects.
Rep. Primila Jayapal, D-Wa., asked Bezos if Amazon had accessed third party seller data, following a report in
Top executives from Facebook, Google and Apple also testified, mostly answering questions about their influence on smaller companies. All four companies often clash with regulators in the U.S. and abroad.
Nickel and diming
It's not just drive-through chicken that's short on coins. While a pair of Chick-fil-A franchises offered
The U.S. Mint is asking Americans to use coins when possible to help balance the national supply, reports
It's asking people to either pay in exact change, or deposit spare change in coin redemption machines.
Stolen wallet
Crypto wallet developer Ledger has suffered a data breach that left user information vulnerable for more than two months.
The hacker infiltrated Ledger's e-commerce and marketing database, reports
A bug bounty found the breach on July 14, and thus far the damage does not include cryptocurrency funds, Ledger reports. The vulnerability has been repaired.
Going corporate
Bank of America has extended mobile wallet availability for corporate clients globally, adding EMEA and APAC to existing markets such as North America and Europe.
Clients using corporate travel and purchasing cards can use Apple Pay and Google Pay in all markets. BofA first launched the corporate mobile wallet in the U.S. and Canada in 2018.
The bank is positioning the extension as a coronavirus move, focusing on the appetite for mobile payments, though the pandemic has temporarily shut a large percentage of corporate travel and spending.
Fast debit
QuickBooks has released a series of business banking services designed to link payments to the accounting software's other functions for firms that have quickly migrated online.
Called QuickBooks Cash, the product includes an interest bearing account, financial management tools and a debit card that allows businesses to make payments from the account balance. There are also virtual "envelopes" to store funds to ensure the money isn't accidentally spent.
From the Web
REUTERS | Thursday July 30, 2020
A government audit of India's flagship payments processor last year found more than 40 security vulnerabilities including several it called "critical" and "high" risk, according to an internal government document seen by Reuters.
TECHCRUNCH | Thursday July 30, 2020
Small- to medium-sized companies that do a lot of international business have to deal with two big headaches: high foreign exchange fees and corporate expense tracking. Volopay, a Singapore-based financial tech startup with offices in Bangalore, wants to help by integrating prepaid multi-currency corporate cards, expense tracking and accounting tools into one free-to-use platform.
COINDESK | Wednesday July 29, 2020
While increased volatility and rising mining difficulties have deterred crypto-mining attacks, users in India and Sri Lanka face a relatively higher chance of encountering one, according to Microsoft’s recent cybersecurity report for countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
More from PaymentsSource
As more payment enterprises embrace the ecosystem model, we will continue to see a shift towards composable and dynamic operations flows supported by an engineering-first approach and a smart digital core, says Mphasis' Andres Ricuarte.
The agency's voice carries even more weight in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which has hastened the transition to digital and remote payments.
As the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy, there were few bright spots. PayPal is one of the brightest.
On-demand delivery service Rappi is leveraging its huge customer base to provide financial products to Latin American consumers through partnerships and joint ventures with fintechs and banks.
In the same manner as its previous plans for a fintech charter, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency is getting some pushback from banking trade groups on its idea to establish a payments charter.
Citing the benefit of making purchases from home during the coronavirus pandemic, China's UnionPay International is partnering with digital platform Glovo to enable its cardholders in Europe to participate in on-demand shopping.
Payfone, a customer identity verification provider, said Wednesday it's changing its name to Prove and acquiring mobile authentication technology from Early Warning Services.
The pandemic may have put a halt to travel but money continues to cross borders.
The coronavirus outbreak has caused economic activity to crater, and Visa says its focus on services, partnerships and e-commerce has provided stability and a route to growth.
Republicans and Democrats are negotiating a new coronavirus stimulus package, but there’s still no law on the books designed to erase the problems that prevented many stimulus payments from getting directly to recipients.
The coronavirus pandemic has greatly disrupted many people's cashflow, and made financial management much more stressful. Earned wage access is one way to provide relief to those who still have an income but find themselves financially strained. PaymentsSource senior analyst Michael Moeser talks about earned wage access with Safwan Shah, the founder and CEO of Payactiv, a company that's operated in this space for nearly a decade.
