The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Square's chargeback bodyguard
Square is offering a feature that small businesses can use to build contracts to shield them from chargeback claims and payment disputes.
India's MPs attack Alibaba's stake in Paytm
Members of India's parliament are concerned about
Other members contend Alibaba's increased presence would pose a "security risk" by giving the Chinese e-commerce company access to more of the country's payment system. .
Paytm's also not happy
Meanwhile, Paytm is doing lobbying of its own. The online payment company's executives reportedly got into an argument with executives from companies outside India during a recent meeting with Indian government officials.
While Paytm argues local storage would help India's economy, MoneyControl reports Paytm has taken advantage of local storage regulations by partnering with merchants to support Paytm's mobile wallet at the expense of Visa and Mastercard payments.
Canadian loyalty
Air Canada, TD Bank, CIBC and Visa are proposing to pay $250 million to buy and manage Aimia's Aeroplan loyalty business, which had about $2 billion in liability as of March 31, in effect making it a $2.25 billion deal if accepted.
The two banks and Visa have set an August 2 deadline to accept the deal, which they say will ensure stability of consumers' "points" an enable a smooth transition to a new Air Canada-operated loyalty program in 2020.
Crypto gift
Through a collaboration with WeGift, Coindesk will support gift transactions at Nike, Tesco, Uber, Ticketmaster and others.
Coinbase won't charge withdrawal fees for gifting, and will be able to convert cryptocoins into Uber credits as well, according to a release.
From the Web
South China Morning Post | Wed July 25, 2018 - China’s two biggest mobile payment providers have been named among 27 companies and individuals found guilty of breaking the rules on foreign exchange transactions. Alipay, the payment arm of Alibaba Group, and Tenpay, owned by tech giant Tencent Holdings, were each fined 600,000 yuan (US$88,000) by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the regulator said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Business Times | Wed July 25, 2018 - CLOUD Alliance, a Singapore-headquartered payments and gaming firm, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a unit of Shunten International, a Hong Kong-listed provider of online payment services, to collaborate in areas such as e-payments and gaming. In a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Shunten International said that the MOU seeks to expand the company's WeChat cross-border payment business by leveraging Cloud Alliance’s payment solutions and partnership with Unity to reach out to millions of game developers and gamers.
Krebs On Security | Wed July 25, 2018 - Identity theft protection firm LifeLock — a company that’s built a name for itself based on the promise of helping consumers protect their identities online — may have actually exposed customers to additional attacks from ID thieves and phishers. The company just fixed a vulnerability on its site that allowed anyone with a Web browser to index email addresses associated with millions of customer accounts, or to unsubscribe users from all communications from the company.
More from PaymentsSource
The outage that halted a portion of Visa payments in Europe was almost two months ago, but the card brand is still explaining what happened and attempting to isolate the incident.
American Express' blockchain patent application isn't just about payments: It could also radically change how card-based merchant offers are made and allow them to become much more targeted.
Though it’s still early in the development of voice assistant technology, researchers are getting a sense of who’s most likely to use voice commands for shopping and payments, based on recent consumer data.
WEX will accept Visa’s virtual credit cards for corporate payments, expanding the international digital payment options for WEX’s B2B customers.
