TSG is pleased to announce several new hires and promotions as the firm focuses on new solutions to support the payments industry.
"Despite the difficulties we faced in 2020, we are excited to celebrate TSG’s staff changes as we push forward into 2021,” said Mike Strawhecker, President of TSG. “Our team is committed to providing its clients the support needed to guide decision-making, increase profits, and accelerate growth.”
Bitcoin smashed through $40,000 to hit a new record high on Thursday helping to lift the total value of the entire cryptocurrency market above $1 trillion for the first time. The digital coin hit an all-time high of $40,367 at around 1:17 p.m. ET, just a few hours after blowing past the $39,000 level, according to data from Coin Metrics. Bitcoin pared some of its gains after hitting a record, last trading at $38,885, up 9.1% higher from a day earlier. The cryptocurrency is up over 30% since the start of 2021 and in the past 12 months has surged 400%.
Affirm, which provides installment loans to online shoppers, is seeking to raise up to $934.8 million in an initial public offering, signaling last year’s record listings run is carrying over to 2021. The San Francisco-based company said in a filing Tuesday that it planned to sell 24.6 million shares for $33 to $38 each. With the so-called green shoe shares, it is offering 28.2 million shares, the filing showed. At the top of the range, Affirm would have a market value of $9.22 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in its filing. Including employee stock options and restricted share units, Affirm would have a valuation of more than $11 billion, the filing showed.
May require account to read. Even early in the pandemic, it was apparent that acquirers needed digital onboarding, electronic payments and automated chargeback solutions to keep their footing in an acquiring landscape already facing disruption. But now, many are contemplating what a post-COVID acquiring world will look like and how digital offerings will coexist with traditional one-on-one merchant account and payment processing sales.
"When everything gets back to normal in the next year or two, we will see a shift back toward in-person interaction, as a lot of people will want to go back to that, having grown tired of sitting and looking at a computer screen," said John Jakobe, market intelligence manager at The Strawhecker Group. "But generally speaking, because everyone is so focused on these new digital customer service tools, I don't think these tools will go away, as more merchants are seeing the benefit."
The record surge in the price of bitcoin is "a boon" for Square's revenue and gross profits as it leads to increased user engagement among its Cash App users that buy and sell the cryptocurrency, Mizuho Securities said in a note on Thursday. If bitcoin manages to jump to the $100,000 level by the end of 2021, Square's gross profit tied to the Cash App's crypto unit "could drive a 9x increase in Bitcoin GP [gross profit] to slightly over $1 billion," the note said. Square generated an estimated $110 million in gross profits tied to its bitcoin business last year, according to Mizuho.
May require account to read. With people traveling less and spending more on digital platforms, banks with big credit-card units may have lost some relative luster with investors. But they still have cards to play. JPMorgan Chase recently acquired the global loyalty division of cxLoyalty Group Holdings. That business serves credit-card rewards programs and helps connect them to a number of ways that rewards can be used. The move suggests in part that JPMorgan Chase sees travel and cards continuing a long-running association, and the deal includes travel services.
Processor Shift4 Payments Inc. on Thursday expanded its presence in the gambling industry to include online gambling and fantasy leagues through a partnership with Sightline Payments, a provider of cashless gaming and betting solutions. The partnership complements Shift4’s existing relationships with Las Vegas casinos and other betting venues around the country and is expected make online sports betting a component of in-venue gaming and sports-book operations within casinos for which Shift4 processes transactions.
Green Dot, a fintech player that’s often overlooked compared with bigger rivals PayPal and Square, has been on a tear lately, with its stock climbing 140% last year. Still, its shares have ample room to run as the company launches a digital bank account for low- and moderate-income Americans and signs more partnership deals, said CEO Dan Henry, hired in March to lead a turnaround of the firm. Green Dot started two decades ago as a pioneer in prepaid debit cards, which allowed people without bank accounts or credit history to use plastic.
The federal banking regulator published an interpretive letter addressing whether national banks and federal savings associations could participate in independent node verification networks (INVNs, otherwise known as blockchain networks) or use stablecoins. The letter said these financial institutions can participate as nodes on a blockchain and store or validate payments. Any banks that do participate in an INVN must be aware of the operational, compliance or fraud risks when doing so, an OCC press release warned.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay mobile payment app, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. The move, first reported by Reuters, is aimed at curbing the threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data, a senior administration official told Reuters.
At the start of 2020, contactless payments were constrained. In countries like the U.S. and India, they were either lacking adoption or actively opposed; and in other parts of the world, contactless payments were held to strict transaction limits before requiring extra authentication. But the year — and the coronavirus pandemic — caused a dramatic shift in attitude. Many consumers and merchants now saw contactless cards and mobile payments as a way to move ahead without the germ fears that come with touching cash and PIN pads. And even after those fears subsided, the new habits stuck around.
PayPal-owned banking app Venmo is launching a check cashing feature for both its Android and iOS apps for “eligible” users in the US, the company announced Monday. Cash a Check will allow users to snap a photo of a check and deposit it into a Venmo account. The review process that makes the funds available should only take a few seconds, but in some cases may take up to an hour, the company says. Fees will apply to most check deposits, but Venmo is waiving the fees for deposits of stimulus checks for a limited time. Its usual fees, according to PayPal’s terms of service, will include a 5 percent check cashing fee for hand-signed payroll and government checks for a minimum fee of $5 and 1 percent fees on payroll or government checks with pre-printed signatures.
Some consolidation is underway in the world of challenger banking apps. BBVA today told users of Simple — the pioneering mobile and online banking app that it acquired for $117 million in 2014 — that it is planning to shut down the service, moving accounts to BBVA’s USA business in the process. The move is part of an ongoing effort at BBVA — which had been an active investor and acquirer of startups — to streamline its business as it works on closing a merger with PNC. The latter bank announced in November last year that it would acquire the US business of BBVA for $11.6 billion.
New York's Metropolitan Transport Authority has completed the year-and-a-half-long rollout of contactless payments across its subway stations. The One Metro New York (Omny) system allows subway and bus passengers to use their debit and credit cards and mobile wallets to pay for their ride. Following a brief delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there are now over 15,000 Omny readers at all 472 stations, as well as on all of the city's 5800 buses and at Staten Island Railway stations.
Samsung Pay users in the USA are no longer able to earn Samsung Rewards points each time they make a purchase using the payments service. Samsung has updated the terms and conditions of its rewards programme, and these show that users are now able to earn Samsung Rewards points only when making purchases from the Samsung Galaxy Store and other Samsung Checkout-enabled mobile apps, buying selected Samsung products and “by visiting special locations announced by Samsung Pay”.
The UK's flag-carrier airline is said to be planning to begin settlement discussions that could see customers who became the victims of a data breach receive a compensation payout of up to £3bn. British Airways customers were impacted by two data breaches in 2018. Between April and July 2018, some 185,000 British Airways reward-booking customers were notified that their personal information and financial details had been compromised, while a further 380,000 users of the airline’s app and website had their information exposed between August and September 2018.
FinTech giant PayPal has won a lawsuit against the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) pertaining to rules regarding prepaid cards and digital wallets, Westlaw Today reported. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C. invalidated part of the CFPB’s mandate, essentially agreeing with PayPal that the agency went beyond its jurisdiction. PayPal filed the suit in December 2019 under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), contesting a 2019 rule regulating prepaid cards and electronic wallets.
When Brian Brooks took the role of Acting Comptroller of the Currency for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) in May 2020, many in the industry knew some of Brooks’ focus would be on fintech and blockchain technology. Since that time, the OCC has provided interpretive letters and guidance clarifying that banks can custody cryptocurrency and stablecoins, as well as engage in stablecoin activity. The OCC also created a Special Purpose Payments Charter for FinTech companies.
In March of 2020, Americans began to realize that the coronavirus was deadly and going to be a real problem. What no Americans knew then was that at about the same time, the Russian government's hack of SolarWinds's proprietary software Orion network monitoring program was destroying the security of top American government agencies and tech companies. There were no explosions, no deaths, but it was the Pearl Harbor of American IT. Russia, we now know, used SolarWinds' hacked program to infiltrate at least 18,000 government and private networks. The data within these networks, user IDs, passwords, financial records, source code, you name it, can be presumed now to be in the hands of Russian intelligence agents.
Ransomware gangs entered 2020 with a full and dangerous set of weapons at their disposal and then rolled out additional tools such as extortion and new distribution methods, a trend that is expected to continue into 2021. "This year will be even worse. Ransomware attacks will keep trending up until secure cloud architecture is widely adopted," says Lee McKnight, an associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. So, what stood out to cybersecurity pros in 2020? Topping the list was the widespread use of extortion to force ransom payments and the associated quick rise and then retirement of the Maze ransomware gang.
Job creation came to a halt in December as restrictions brought on by surging Covid-19 cases hammered virus-sensitive industries, particularly bars and restaurants, which lost nearly half a million positions. The Labor Department reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls fell by 140,000. That was below expectations for 50,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The unemployment rate was 6.7% compared with the 6.8% estimate. An alternative unemployment measures that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons declined to 11.7% from 12%.
It seemed appropriate that the jobs numbers for the final months of 2020 would be as nasty as the year as a whole was. It is fair to say that the loss of 140,000 jobs in December indicates a backsliding of the economic recovery that took place in the summer and fall. Other numbers in Friday’s report confirm that basically gloomy picture, such as the continued depressed share of adults who are in the labor force. In the debate over which letter of the alphabet best describes the pattern of the 2020 economy, the December numbers pretty much rule out “V.”
Economic stimulus approved in the United States and Japan at the end of last year will help to power a recovery in their economies in the second half of 2021, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said on Wednesday. Gopinath told Yahoo Finance in a live interview that the U.S. and Japanese rebounds may prompt upgrades of economic forecasts in some parts of the world. But she said the recovery in some developing countries could be delayed until 2022 by limited availability of coronavirus vaccines.
NCR Corporation, a leading provider of retail solutions that run the store, announced the acquisition of grocery e-commerce leader Freshop. Adding e-commerce to NCR’s leading retail core point-of-sale platform will give retailers, especially regional and small grocery chains, the ability to quickly deploy “buy-online, pickup-in-store” capabilities to serve their customers’ needs directly. This combination enables retailers to build stronger customer relationships, strengthen their brands, and earn better margins than with third-party e-commerce providers.
Silicon Valley startup Social Finance (SoFi) is closing a merger deal with blank-check firm Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V to file an initial public offering (IPO). “SoFi is on a mission to help people achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions. Our ecosystem of products, rewards and membership benefits all work together to help our members get their money right,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said in a press release on Thursday (Jan. 7).
Last month, Beyond announced the promotion of Chief Sales Officer Brent Rose to its inaugural Chief Revenue Officer position. The new role expands Rose's jurisdiction to encompass Sales, Marketing, and Product Development. He will be responsible for the holistic revenue generation and product advancement of the company, with a sharp focus on customer experience. This strategic restructuring marks the first time esteemed Beyond Founder and CEO Bob Carr has named a Chief Revenue Officer in his decades of leadership.
The Women's Network in Electronic Transactions (Wnet) announced that its Board of Directors unanimously elected new leaders to its Board, Executive Committee, and President’s Advisory Council. Deeply committed to Wnet’s mission, the 2021 additions offer broad leadership representation, enabling Wnet to empower women from the payments and fintech industry at every level.
To kick off the new year, American Express is introducing new offers for U.S. Consumer, Small Business and Cobrand Card Members, as well as small merchants. Designed with customers’ current needs in mind, these offers provide support to navigate the impact of the pandemic and plan for the road ahead. "Last year we moved quickly to support our Card Members by delivering relevant value and services to help them navigate the uncertainties of the pandemic. As a result, we saw incredible engagement across these offers which drove increased loyalty and lower attrition levels than in 2019 across our Card Member base."
Credit Suisse Group AG expects to post a fourth-quarter loss after setting aside $850 million for legal cases in the U.S. as CEO Thomas Gottstein seeks to tackle legacy issues and start the year with a clean slate. The amount is more than twice what the bank signaled last month when it flagged that a dispute with the bond insurer MBIA could cost it more than expected, though it covers a number of related cases that it has since reviewed. The provision comes on top of a previously announced $450 million impairment on a hedge fund investment that will also be booked in the fourth quarter.
Credit Suisse Group AG expects to post a fourth-quarter loss after setting aside $850 million for legal cases in the U.S. as CEO Thomas Gottstein seeks to tackle legacy issues and start the year with a clean slate. The amount is more than twice what the bank signaled last month when it flagged that a dispute with the bond insurer MBIA could cost it more than expected, though it covers a number of related cases that it has since reviewed. The provision comes on top of a previously announced $450 million impairment on a hedge fund investment that will also be booked in the fourth quarter.
Fortis Payment Systems, LLC (FortisPay), the leader in payment technologies to businesses and developers, announced it has acquired Swype at Work (Swype) and entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Net at Work, an affiliate company of Swype. The acquisition will allow FortisPay to expand its offerings into new B2B and middle markets throughout North America. The acquisition will leverage the ERP and e-commerce integration expertise of Net at Work with FortisPay’s 20 years of payment experience, providing customized solutions that seamlessly integrate into a wide range of complex solutions that serve a myriad of market segments.
Nets Group's Finnish online payment subsidiary Paytrail is to acquire fellow e-commerce specialist Checkout Finland from OP Financial. Checkout Finland, serving both ecommerce and physical stores with a wide array of payment options, has around 8,000 ecommerce merchants on its customer list and is expecting close to EUR12m of revenues in 2020, up from a reported EUR 8.2m in 2019. The deal follows a ten-year partnership with OP Financial in the merchant acquiring segment and continues the ongoing process of consolidation in the payments sector.
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, announced that it has been selected to power Pakistan’s TAG, the nation’s first digital-native financial super app due to launch in Q1 of 2021. The program aims to provide instant payments and transparent pricing to the nation’s unbanked adult population of approximately 100 million including features such as the ability to send and receive money instantly and without fees to anyone with a TAG account, ATM access, bill payment and mobile top-up as well as tools to monitor spending.
Payment security and encryption leader Bluefin announced the company’s certification to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) DSS’s point-to-point encryption (P2PE) v3.0 Standard. PCI-validated P2PE is the gold standard in payment encryption, ensuring that payment data is immediately encrypted upon tap, dip, swipe or key entry in a P2PE certified payment terminal. P2PE benefits include a significantly reduced yearly PCI assessment, saving companies time, money and overhead, while ensuring that if a system is breached, hackers find no clear-text payment data entered through the point-of-sale (POS).
Qualpay, a leading provider of integrated omnichannel payment solutions, announced that all Qualpay customers are now able to process Google Pay payments through the Qualpay platform. The new integration arrives as consumers globally increasingly turn to e-wallets as a payments option, helping Qualpay partners better serve their customers in the years ahead.
Bancard has teamed up with dLocal to enable payments with cards in the local currency for Amazon Prime Video subscribers in Paraguay. Local customers with a Prime Video subscription will now be able to pay in Guaranies through credit or debit cards issued by certified local financial institutions, such as Bancard cards, with no currency fluctuations. Amazon Prime Video offers payments with cards in the local currency through dLocal, a financial technology company specialised in payments for emerging markets.
