The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
Target's lost weekend
Target experienced outages at its point of sale on both days over the weekend. Saturday's troubles stemmed from an internal tech issue that lasted two hours; Sunday's issue was blamed on a third-party's data center,
The two outages were unrelated, the retailer said. It also emphasized that the incidents did not compromise security or result from a data breach.
Target may still be feeling the PR sting from a
'Disappointed'
Australia's major banks are rolling out the country's New Payments Platform at a "disappointing" and uneven rate, and the Reserve Bank of Australia is calling for action to boost the pace.
The NPP went live in 2018 and is designed to support transfers in seconds. But the
The report, which calls for regular inspections and threatens forcing regulation, also suggests broadening the NPP scheme to participants that aren't authorized deposit-taking institutions, and options to buy shares in projects to bring in more participants.
Youth skills
Amazon Alexa's skills for young people include stuff like grooming tips and how to run a lemonade stand, and now
The toolkit includes APIs for developers to build premium kid skills, and controls to help manage purchases, such as SMS and/or email notifications for approval.
Amazon has been gradually adding transaction capabilities to
Polite yet firm
In another advancement for voice-directed financial services, Russian online bank Tinkoff has introduced a voice assistant to help with payments and other transactions.
Tinkoff describes "
Financial inclusion
The African Development Bank has set aside about $120 million in working capital and $400 million in debt financing to build payments tech and general financial services.
The group hopes to take advantage of Africa's high rate of mobile phone ownership, which has already shown an ability to encourage financial inclusion through telco-related mobile money services such as
Among the initiatives the ADB is pushing is an interoperable digital payment system for P2P transfers between mobile wallets, and from wallets to bank accounts, reports
From the Web
Forbes | Sun June 16, 2019 - An extraordinary amount of money passes between businesses every day; the Business to Business (B2B) payments industry itself is worth around $127 trillion—but, despite its size, the industry continues to utilize outdated solutions that hinder its efficiency.
Forbes | Sun June 16, 2019 - Since the 2008 economic recession, the financial industry has been unexpectedly shaken and faced with several challenges concerning trust, reliability, and value. Traditional banking is now deemed outdated and somewhat unreliable as consumers and businesses are seeking alternative options for their transactions and assets.
CoinDesk | Fri June 14, 2019 - The Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland (FME) has approved Reykjavik-based Monerium as its first electronic money institution. The designation means that Monerium has regulatory approval to provide fiat payment services on a blockchain and use it throughout the European Economic Area.
More from PaymentsSource
Facebook's Libra, or GlobalCoin, will be cryptocurrency's largest test — fueled by a collection of huge investors that will determine if mainstream merchants and consumers will actually use a payment system featuring an alternative currency.
A huge portion of European companies will not clear PSD2's regulatory hurdles for digital connections between banks and payment apps, but that hasn't slowed down some companies that see value in open banking and payments.
Dutch banks ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank have started transferring their ATMs to the Geldmaat network in the Netherlands to address the decline of cash use among its customers, while continuing to make it available.
When shoppers reach the cash register, they typically have an array of payment choices.
