The mobile point of sale pioneer Square has done much to expand its product range to stay competitive, and a few of those efforts have made the company more of a direct threat to banks.
When Equifax disclosed its enormous data breach that exposed the personal information of some 143 million people, the reaction of many consumers and corporate executives was similar and familiar: our data is at risk at all times and the less access we give to others the better. But that's precisely the wrong lesson.
When a coder locked $150 million of digital currency stored in Parity digital wallets last week, many bankers probably saw it as another reason to ignore cryptocurrencies. Instead they should recognize the business opportunity (key custody) that the incident presents.
The bank is upgrading its ATM network to work with Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, allowing easier cash withdrawals and other cardless ATM transactions.
Citigroup is expanding its payments partnership to allow its card members to use their ThankYou rewards points for purchases at PayPal checkout in the U.S.
Apple's plans to display a bright blue bar on iPhone screens when an application is monitoring the user's location may feel like a threat to location-based marketing. More likely, it is an overdue wake-up call for banks to improve their communication about the benefits of location data.
The Bokis wallet's new app is scheduled for broad release this summer. It's a rare success for collaborative wallets, as others have failed, such as the U.S.'s Softcard and CurrentC, the U.K.’s Weve, Canada’s suretap and Singapore’s SmartWallet.
