The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web:
India vs. Visa
India and U.S. card brands have clashed over several regulations, such as India's
Visa's India and South Asia chief T.R. Ramachandran has spoken out about the rules, saying the logic is "fallacious" because the cost is not free, reports
The fight comes amid a backdrop of
Data Breach
A glitch at MoviePass has resulted in the exposure of tens of thousands of card numbers, reportedly because a server did not have password protection.
A Dubai-based security firm called SpiderSilk found the exposed database, reports
Other records included about 58,000 card numbers for MoviePass customers that use cards to store balances to pay for tickets. MoviePass' services include a
Processing deals
The financial technology market had a record-setting first half for investments, but the numbers were dominated by a small number of deals.
The three
Most deals overall are getting larger, as 65% of the deals in the first half of 2019 were $100 million or greater, compared to 54% in the first half of 2018.
Crypto hire
Cryptocurrency veteran Matt Corallo has joined Square Crypto, where he will develop open source bitcoin projects for the payment company's crypto initiative.
Corallo has worked as a Bitcoin Core contributor and was an engineer for Chaincode Labs, a bitcoin technology company, reports
Celebrity investors
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriquez have invested in Acorns, an app that rounds up card purchases and invests the extra money in the stock and bond markets.
Acorns has about five million accounts in the U.S., and a bevy of other celebrity investors including Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Durant, reports
From the Web
THE GUARDIAN | Tue August 20, 2019
NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers have been hit by computer problems preventing them from accessing credit card information, and the bank’s call centres are unable to deal with credit card queries. The glitch is likely to affect a relatively small number of RBS’s 14 million customers, given that few have yet aired their complaints on social media.
THE JAPAN TIMES | Wed August 21, 2019
Once a pioneer in cashless transaction-related technology, Japan is now lagging behind as the world’s biggest economies increasingly embrace electronic payments — because its aging population still prefers physical money. Four out of five purchases are still made with cash in Japan, despite its reputation as a futuristic and innovative nation.
REUTERS | Tue August 20, 2019
China’s biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has delayed its up to $15 billion listing in Hong Kong amid growing political unrest in the Asian financial hub, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. While no new timetable has been formally set, Alibaba could potentially launch the deal as early as October, still seeking to raise $10 billion-$15 billion, depending on whether political tensions had eased and market conditions became more favorable, one of the people said.
More from PaymentsSource
NEW YORK — As major U.S. cities continue to implement contactless tap-and-go acceptance to collect transit fares, at least one bank sees this trend as an opportunity to put its cards on center stage.
Apple is expanding the list of merchants where Apple Card users may earn 3% cash back, starting with Uber.
Bank of America has joined the likes of Walmart and Mastercard in seeking patents for blockchain technology that could be used for a digital currency or mobile wallet.
Barclays has jumped on a huge range of technology that brings payments closer to myriad activities, but as competition looms, the bank is working to better organize its projects.
