Payments

While businesses' ability to transact internationally has expanded, the act of settling payments has gotten more complex, expensive and time-consuming. That means opportunity for companies that can provide solutions.

PayPal and Walmart are offering a cash-in and cash-out service from PayPal accounts within Walmart stores. It's the first time Walmart, one of the founders the defunct Merchant Customer Exchange, will accept a third-party mobile wallet.

Worldpay is combining the Worldpay Bankout solution, which will now deliver to 154 direct bank disbursement destinations, and Worldpay FastAccess enabled by Visa Direct.

The payment landscape is still very fragmented with local solutions holding their own against global giants and new technologies such as AI and blockchain keeping the payments market very enterprising, writes Eva Murphy Ryan, trade development executive for financial services and technology at Enterprise Ireland New York.

For all the media attention around the best options for cardholders when making transactions abroad, there's little focus on the lack of transparency on the costs involved with making a purchase in the local currencies where Visa, Mastercard and the issuers manage the conversion, argues Gino Ravaioli, chairman of the DCC Forum.

Called Bill Pay Exchange, it will power instant bill pay for consumers from their bank or credit union accounts in a matter of seconds versus days when using the traditional bank bill pay ACH network.

The three credit unions from Connecticut will receive a variety of services from the credit union service organization, including bill pay.

The cryptocurrency boom has encouraged attackers to expand their focus from other methods such as utilizing malware to steal data and impose ransoms or launching a disruptive DDoS attack, to employing tools and techniques to gain access to the computing power of enterprises to generate cryptocurrency payouts, writes Carolyn Crandall, chief deception officer at Attivo Networks.

At Tropical Smoothie, a new IT project will deploy new cloud-hosted point of sale terminals, handheld devices and kitchen display systems over the next few weeks across its 700-location footprint.

There has been a dramatic decline in cryptocurrency market activity, portending a severe contraction

Credit unions in the Great Lakes State continued to add members in Q2 while a variety of loan types saw double-digit growth.

Angela Clark will be CEO of Beem It, which launched in May and has the backing of National Australia Bank, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.

Fintechs can get what they need from a traditional bank charter with the FDIC, as long as the agency is willing to play ball and step up its approach to innovation.

Emotional connections can make a difference when consumers have many different ways to shop and pay, according to Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce.

Despite the real-world use cases being found around blockchain and distributed ledger technology, banks are being warned to be cautious about committing to any such projects.

International migration has hit an all-time high in recent years, with 250 million migrant workers across the globe. This has created a booming new international payments market for remittance providers.

Singtel Group, owner of Singapore Telecom, launched a QR code-based cross-border mobile payments alliance with Thailand’s largest digital bank, Kasikornbank and Thailand’s largest mobile phone operator Advanced Info Service or AIS.

In monitoring the patterns of a North Korean cyberattack organization that has stolen more than $1.1 billion from global financial institutions since 2014, security firm FireEye says these hackers are still at work in targeting a bank's access to the Swift messaging network.

Comparing the U.K. payments landscape to that of the U.S. is sometimes like comparing apples to oranges according to Ankit Kumar, manager of digital payments and mobile financial services at Gemalto.

In/PACT wants to encourage higher charitable donations by having donors use their banks’ online platforms instead of going directly to the charities.