Payment processing

Founded in 1971, First Data may not have the glow of being a trendy startup. Green Dot, founded in 1999, is in the same boat. But under the hood both companies have done much to keep up with the innovators.

U.K. payments technology provider Paysafe has entered a partnership with Company.com and Ingo Money to offer same-day settlement to small business merchants in the U.S.

The move from standard to real-time transactions adds another layer of complexity and creates further opportunities for fraudsters. Quicker transaction times increase the chances of fraudulent transactions going undetected, writes David Worthington, vice president of payments at Rambus.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning can far exceed human capabilities. But AI is still only as good as the quality of data that's feeding the machine, according to Sunil Madhu, founder and chief strategy officer of Socure.

Visa, which was criticized for its vague explanation of a June 1 outage in Europe, was in the process of installing better technology, but the project was not complete at the time of the incident and won't be finished until the end of this year.

U.K. private equity firm Dunedin says it has invested "a significant stake" in a £44 million (U.S. $58 million) funding round for Global Processing Services, which provides payment processing and technology for financial institutions, digital banks, challenger banks and fintechs.

Payment processors have increasingly become full-service providers from equipment to security measures and, most recently, some mobile and omnichannel options.

London-based TransferWise's business model has been to undercut traditional banks’ foreign transfer fees, and the company's marketing has long emphasized its role as a plucky rival to banks — going so far as to invoke a comparison to Robin Hood. But the company's offering can also benefit the banks that see value in making peace with an upstart.

Western companies desperately want a chunk of China's vast domestic consumer payments market, though they may find themselves feeling lucky to be left out.

The House Financial Services Committee was scheduled to vote on legislation to modernize anti-money-laundering rules, but the latest version of the bill excludes a key provision involving the collection of beneficial ownership information.

The rules are a chance for card issuers to update their data management, which would be helpful in sales and cross-selling, according to Michael Hiskey, head of strategy at Semarchy.

Longtime Starbucks boss Howard Schultz was so invested in the company's mobile payments strategy that he once stepped down from his day-to-day duties to focus his full attention on the tech initiative. Without his involvement, will Starbucks lose its edge in fintech?

As the gig economy balloons, a private network is adding partners and geographies to separate itself in a fintech-dominated market.

A fintech that has grabbed a sizable chunk of the Australian digital payments market has made some quick merchant scores for its American launch.

Alt Thirty Six is making its digital payment platform focused on the cannabis industry available to the wholesale network of CannTrade, a partnership the companies say will eliminate the need for using cash.

The simplified pricing of fintechs like Square and Stripe has finally caught up with banks' more complex fees, prompting Wells Fargo to restructure its billing for small businesses. Other banks will also face consequences—particularly community banks that depend on local merchants.

Above all, open banking helps financial institutions improve the user experience, increasing customer satisfaction and addressing consumer needs, writes Aurimas Adomavicius, president and co-founder of Devbridge Group.

Protecting customer data should have always been a priority for companies. With GDPR, they now have a framework for teams across the organization to adopt and protect their customer data, writes Shanthala Balagopal, a product marketing executive at Helpshift.

Merchants that want to use technology to boost sales can establish in-house systems labs to test new payment technology and apps, or find an external lab to do so.

Beem It, a startup owned by three of Australia’s largest banks, has launched a free real-time social payments app designed to run on older debit networks instead of the country's new faster payments platform.