The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:
Grabbing more share
PPRO and Grab will collaborate on a variety of payment use cases in Asian markets, demonstrating the growing power of ride-sharing apps to attract fintechs.
In an initial deployment, PPRO will support GrabPay, the ride-sharing app's e-wallet, in Singapore to enable online merchants to integrate GrabPay. In a later phase, PPRO will add GrabPay's tokenized payments.
Making a deal
Lightspeed POS has acquired Kounta, an Australian technology firm that sells cloud-based payment technology.
Lightspeed has about 51,000 customers, and hopes to gain a foothold among hospitality businesses in the Asia Pacific region through the purchase.
Kounta will bring approximately 7,000 clients, mostly cafes, bars, restaurants and high-end hotels.
Hotel breach
Autoclerk, a hotel reservation system owned by Best Western, has suffered a breach that exposed birth dates, home addresses, phone numbers, masked credit card details and room numbers.
Some of the records were tied to U.S. government officials, the military and the Department of Homeland Security, reports
New license?
New York regulators are considering changes to the state's virtual currency licensing, often called "Bitlicense," which has drawn criticisms from blockchain companies that say it's too strict.
The rule requires companies to have a license to do business in New York, even if they aren't located in the state. That's caused some companies, such as Kraken and Bittrex, to stop doing business in New York, reports
The regulator did not give a time table for the review. The state created a
Closing time
Silicon IP and chip company Rambus has closed the sale of its payments and ticketing business to Visa.
Visa has collaborated with Rambus to support account-based and non-card payments. Rambus has also provided tokenization services to support Automated Clearing House transactions.
From the web
FORTUNE | Wed October 23, 2019
Apple's mobile payments app, Apple Pay, has overtaken Starbucks to become the most popular U.S. payments app. Apple Pay has 30.3 million users, up 38% from estimates earlier last year, followed by Starbucks with 25.2 million, up 8%, market research firm eMarketer said in new report on Wednesday.
COIN DESK | Tue October 22, 2019
The Opera web browser has added bitcoin e-commerce and TRON integration to its Android app, the company said. The enhanced crypto functionality will let Opera for android users make bitcoin payments directly from its built-in digital wallet and interact with decentralized apps (dapps) on the TRON blockchain.
COIN TELEGRAPH | Tue October 22, 2019
Blockchain platform TBCASoft, technology behemoth IBM and telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank announced on Oct. 22 a collaboration to adopt a cross-carrier telecommunications blockchain payment solution. Per the release, the partnership aims to allow carriers to use blockchain through the Carrier Blockchain Study Group (CBSG) Consortium — founded by TBCASoft and SoftBank. TBCASoft reportedly already created a cross-carrier blockchain with 18 participants.
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