TSG is pleased to recognize a selection of payments providers for their exceptional API offerings. The annual Best of Breed API Report, powered by TSG’s Gateway Enterprise Metrics (GEM) platform, ranks payment gateways’ overall API experience to provide insights and benchmarks on their developer integration experience.
Now, more than ever, merchant acquisition and retention is about technology, open-source platforms, and next-generation development communities. Assessments are critical to any gateway or payment technology provider hoping to compete in this brave new marketplace. contact us to learn more
Coinbase is laying off almost a fifth of its workforce amid a collapse in its stock and crypto prices. The cryptocurrency exchange will cut 18% of full-time jobs, according to an email sent to employees Tuesday morning. Coinbase has roughly 5,000 full-time workers, translating to a head count reduction of around 1,100 people. CEO Brian Armstrong pointed to a possible recession, and a need to manage Coinbase’s burn rate and increase efficiency. He also said the company grew “too quickly” during a bull market.
Signs continue to mount that peer-to-peer payments are being adopted by businesses, and in turn could be encroaching on card payments at the point-of-sale. A recent survey of 530 small businesses conducted by The Strawhecker Group and titled “P2P Payment: A Disruption To Plastic?” reveals that 82% of small businesses reported accepting at least one form of P2P payment. Within that group, merchants reported accepting 59% of their total payments using digital P2P options. The survey was conducted for the Electronic Transactions Association during February and March. download infographic
Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion on Thursday by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency. In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and space tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to then let the price tumble.
India has lifted restrictions on Mastercard after the cards giant demonstrated "satisfactory compliance" with the South Asian market's local data storage rules, the central bank said on Thursday. In a series of moves last year, the Reserve Bank of India indefinitely barred Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club from issuing new debit, credit or prepaid cards to customers over noncompliance with local data storage rules.
Digital payments pioneer PayPal aims to amp up its checkout technology as it beats back more competition in that arena and revamps its approach to engaging users. In speaking to an investor conference last week, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said the company aims to reduce the time it takes for merchants to take customers through a transaction; to eliminate its reliance on passwords; and to draw more consumers to its buy now-pay later services, among other moves.
“In less than three months of our integration, we’ve already integrated with Square’s POS, enabling merchants to offer Afterpay both online and in-store,” he said. “We’ve seen significant growth already through this integration, with an average of 266% of consumers using Afterpay at any seller using Square Online more than once.” Despite competition in the BNPL sector, Afterpay is confident it can maintain its edge because of its upcoming integration with Cash App.
Block Inc., the payments-processing company formerly known as Square, plans to give up its former San Francisco headquarters as it transitions to a more distributed workforce model, dealing another blow to a city struggling to bring back workers after the pandemic. The Jack Dorsey-run company won’t renew its lease at 1455 Market St. when it expires in September of next year, according to a spokesperson.
Mr. Powell, a 41-year-old Bitcoin pioneer, ignited a culture war among his more than 3,000 workers, according to interviews with five Kraken employees, as well as internal documents, videos and chat logs reviewed by The New York Times. Some workers have openly challenged the chief executive for what they see as his “hurtful” comments. Others have accused him of fostering a hateful workplace and damaging their mental health.
Samsung is the latest tech giant trying to replace your physical wallet with a digital one that lives on your phone. The company on Thursday launched Samsung Wallet, a new mobile wallet for storing digital keys, boarding passes, ID cards and credit cards. Apple and Google announced major updates for their own virtual wallet platforms in recent weeks.
Bitcoin tumbled on Wednesday to a new 18-month low, dragging smaller tokens down with it and deepening a market meltdown sparked by crypto lender Celsius this week freezing customer withdrawals. The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell as much as 7.8 percent to $20,289, its lowest since December 2020. It has lost around 28 percent since Friday and more than half of its value this year.
Flip, an Indonesia-based consumer payment platform, has closed a $55 million Series B extension round led by Tencent with participation from Block and existing backer Insight Partners. Additionally, a number of other investors, including founder and CEO of Checkout.com Guillaume Pousaz; executive of DoorDash and board member of Coinbase and Pinterest Gokul Rajaram and former Venmo COO Michael Vaughan participated in the extension.
May require account to read. As momentum builds for cannabis legalization on a federal level, the window is closing for payment innovators to establish themselves in the market. Many fintechs have created alternative payment methods for legal cannabis dispensaries, filling a void left by the major card networks, which have stayed away from the industry while cannabis remains illegal on a federal level.
The return to in-store shopping will help fuel sales during retailers’ second biggest selling season. U.S. retail sales are expected to grow 7.5% (excluding automotive) year-over-year during the critical mid-July through Labor Day back-to-school period, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending across all payment forms. Sales are anticipated to increase 18.3% compared to pre-pandemic 2019.
Small businesses are receiving much-needed support from their customer base according to new research from American Express, released to coincide with its summer Shop Small campaign that helps support the nation’s local and independent businesses. The research found that over half (52%) of small businesses believe customers are choosing to shop with small businesses to support them during the current challenging environment.
Retail sales slowed in May as consumers faced continuing inflation and higher prices for essentials like food and gasoline, the National Retail Federation said. “Retail sales are reflecting Americans’ growing concern about inflation and its impact on the cost of everything from groceries to gas,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.
Augmented reality has gained traction over the past few years, alongside online shopping. And Amazon, which has been stepping into the tech, recently debuted its latest virtual try-on feature—for shoes. Available on the company’s iOS app (in the US and Canada), shoppers can point their phone’s camera at their feet to see how the shoe fits.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provided a first glimpse of its coming report on the buy now-pay later trend, urging credit reporting bureaus to standardize their approach to the new financing tool. The regulator, in a blog post on Wednesday, said it has noticed that the three big U.S. credit reporting bureaus are not taking a standardized approach to reporting on consumers’ use of buy now-pay later financing and said that could be problematic.
“Criminals persistently seek the path of least resistance and to combat that, organizations must be equally aggressive in leveraging data as a defence, prioritizing investments in fraud detection and prevention, and proving to customers that their security is paramount,” said Eric Haller, EVP/GM Global Identity & Fraud at Experian.
Ever since 2004, the payment card industry has required merchants who accept credit card payments to adhere to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS, often shortened to PCI). This requirement doesn’t just apply to merchants, but is applicable to any organization that stores, or processes credit or debit card information or who processes accepts credit or debit card payments. Unfortunately, PCI compliance is not a one-time endeavor.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates by 0.75%, the largest move it has made in a single meeting since 1994. The central bank messaged that further interest rate hikes will come this year, as the Fed leans on higher borrowing costs to dampen demand and work to slow faster-than-expected inflation.
Manufacturing activity in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region weakened unexpectedly in June as new orders dropped to a two-year low and goods producers' near-term outlook sank to the lowest since 2008, a closely followed survey showed on Thursday. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's manufacturing activity index slid for a third straight month to a reading of minus 3.3, its first negative reading since May 2020.
New applications for unemployment benefits held nearly steady last week just above historic lows as employers continued to avoid layoffs in a still-tight labor market. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, decreased by 3,000 to 229,000 last week from the previous week's revised level of 232,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Fortis, an integrated commerce and payments technology leader, is proud to be honored by The Strawhecker Group (TSG) in its 2022 "Best of Breed" API Awards. The annual Best of Breed API Report, powered by TSG's Gateway Enterprise Metrics (GEM) platform, ranks payment gateways' overall API experience to provide insights and benchmarks on their developer integration experience.
"Mastercard has been a key partner to us on our journey to help our customers of all sizes transform their businesses and ensure they are truly future-ready,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business. “We are pleased to expand this partnership to include FNBO and bring this small business credit card to our customers at a time when we know they are seeking new avenues to expand their business, manage costs and maximize their use of new technologies to solve challenges to drive growth.”
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, is enabling arenas, stadiums and entertainment venues of all sizes to deliver next generation fan experiences and foodservice operations with Clover® Sport, which integrates point-of-sale hardware with specialized software and services such as loyalty and rewards programs.
This month, Bank of America’s market-leading Virtual Account Management (VAM) solution is coming to companies operating in the United States. The geographical expansion follows last year’s addition of the Netherlands to the existing UK and Ireland capabilities. Through VAM, companies can open virtual accounts that act as sub-ledger accounts tied to a physical account.
Dello, a Montreal fintech company with a mission to make crypto payments easier and more accessible to all, accelerates their goal by joining forces with PandaPay, a leading payment processing company. Dello's crypto payments app is now fully integrated to PandaPay's smart terminals.
Citigroup is to hire more than 4000 tech staff to help businesses boost their digitalisation efforts in the post-pandemic world. More than 1,000 of the recruits will join the markets technology team as part of an aggressive growth strategy, Jonathan Lofthouse, head of markets and enterprise risk technology, told Bloomberg.
Vueling, an airline part of IAG, and BitPay, the world's largest provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services, have reached an agreement allowing the airline's customers to make payments through this digital means of exchange. To offer this service, the airline will use UATP's technology, the global payment network for the airline industry, which allows a fast integration process.
BANCOMAT and Discover signed a strategic agreement that increases acceptance for Discover, Diners Club International and network alliance cardholders, all part of the Discover Global Network. This new partnership will give cardholders the ability to use their cards and mobile payment products on the BANCOMAT network throughout Italy.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced the expansion of its integration with Hotel Investor Apps, an ERP & accounting solution with unique functionality designed for the hospitality industry, enabling HIA properties to streamline accounts payable processes, optimize internal workflows and securely pay vendors and suppliers.
Euronext announced Tuesday the signing of the sale and purchase of the technology businesses from Nexi S.p.A.'s capital markets activities. The purchase price of about 57 million euros, subject to customary closing adjustments, will be paid in cash. The technology businesses in the deal currently powers MTS, Euronext's fixed-income trading platform, and Euronext Securities Milan, formerly called Monte Titoli.
Ant Group announced the launch of Alipay+ Unified Payment. This major product upgrade provides a unified, scalable technical solution to help online and brick-and-mortar merchants collect money through all digital payment methods supported by Alipay+ in a more convenient and effective way.
Joining the team after 13 years at Payoneer, Noam brings to Yapily over two decades of cross-border payments experience, meeting the needs of enterprise companies, and scaling global organisations. In his last role, he contributed to the company's growth from the seed stage to a successful IPO in 2021.
Aliaswire, a provider of bill payment and credit solutions for businesses and banks, announced the general availability of a new Multi-Payer capability in its DirectBiller platform for property management. Offered exclusively through bank partners, DirectBiller equips property managers to offer custom-branded billing and payment experiences to their clients.