In this insightful interview, TSG sat down with TSG’s Senior Associate Mark Waring to address areas of his expertise in payments and where he sees the industry heading.
Mark has over 30 years' experience working in the payments industry and is a recognized leader for initiatives that improve customer profitability, development of innovative products, and launching in new markets. Prior to joining TSG, Waring held executive positions at First Data and PayPal.
May require account to read. Payoneer Inc., an online payments specialist, is in talks to go public through a merger with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp., a blank-check firm, according to people with knowledge of the matter. FTAC rose as much as 29% on the news. The special purpose acquisition company has begun talks to raise new equity to support a transaction that’s slated to value the combined entity at more than $2.5 billion, said one of the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. As a deal isn’t finalized, it’s possible terms change or talks fall apart.
Shares of ACI Worldwide rose Thursday as the payments-software provider reportedly mulled strategic alternatives, including a potential sale. Shares of the Naples, Fla., company at last check rose 4.3% to $40.31. The stock on Thursday touched a 52-week high near $41. That's twice its 52-week low, set in mid-March. A month after the activist investor Starboard Value urged ACI Worldwide to pursue a sale, the company is said to have tapped investment-banking firm Goldman Sachs to weigh its options, Barron's reported. Goldman is expected to begin contacting potential bidders very soon, people familiar with the developments told the paper.
Swedish payments firm Trustly plans to take advantage of a surge in digital transactions in the COVID-19 pandemic with a second-quarter flotation that could value it at up to 9 billion euros ($11 billion), people close to the matter said. The initial public offering (IPO), likely in Stockholm, is one of a number of technology listings expected in Europe as investors flock to growth stocks in strong equity markets. Trustly’s owner, buyout group Nordic Capital, is working with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Carnegie and is in the process of hiring more banks with a view to launching the IPO in late April or early May, the sources said.
The pandemic has hastened a shift of most commerce becoming e-commerce in the last year, and that has brought a new focus on startups that are helping to enable that process. In the latest development, PPRO, a London-based startup that has built a platform to make it easier for marketplaces, payment providers and other e-commerce players to enable localized payments — that is, make and take payments in whatever form local customers prefer to use, which extend well beyond basic payment cards — has closed a round of $180 million, funding that catapults PPRO’s valuation to over $1 billion.
Discover Financial Services reported mixed results Thursday for the fourth quarter of 2020. Despite a 4% decline year-over-year in revenue, which totaled $2.82 billion, Discover’s net income rose 13% to $799 million. Payment Services volume totaled $70.1 billion, up 6% year-over-year, with all four legs that comprise the division—the Discover and Pulse networks, Diners Club and Network Partners—posting increases in dollar volume. Volume on the company’s flagship Discover network rose 5% year-over-year to $42.5 billion. Pulse, Discover’s ATM network, saw volume increase 10% year-over-year to $55.1 billion.
Bitcoin slumped for a second day Thursday, taking the digital currency’s losses to more than 10% over 48 hours and wiping off billions of dollars from the crypto market. The price of bitcoin slipped 8% on Thursday to as low as $31,007, falling below the $32,000 level for the first time since Jan. 11, according to data from industry website CoinDesk. The world’s most valuable digital coin has had a wild few weeks, briefly hitting $41,940 earlier this month before sinking sharply the subsequent week. The reason for its latest move wasn’t immediately clear, but investors told CNBC it is likely a natural correction.
The Bank of France will shut down more than a third of its cash handling centers by the end of 2022 as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates a decline in the use of notes and coins. Operations will cease at 14 of the 37 centers that stock currency and replace damaged notes and coins. The central bank estimates the network would be 40% underused if it remained as expansive as it is now. Lockdowns to curb virus infections have pushed more shoppers onto online platforms, while the raising of the ceiling for contactless payments has encouraged card use. There are also concerns over contagion via bank notes, although the central bank has denied there are risks.
Online money transfer unicorn TransferWise has appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to co-ordinate a planned initial public offering in London later this year, according to Sky News. The Wall Street giants were brought in this week, says Sky, adding that the timing and venue of the float have yet to be finalized. The IPO would expect to value TransferWise well above the $5 billion valuation it secured in a funding round last July. Richard Branson and Peter Thiel were among the firm's early backers.
In its latest move to capitalize on the spending of its broad customer base, Walmart is expanding its offerings beyond its core business by building a fintech startup. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant last week announced plans to create a fintech startup with Ribbit Capital — a company with a history of backing several players in the space, including Robinhood, Affirm and Credit Karma. Walmart will own a majority of the startup but didn't give specific details on the deal.
Tom Blomfield, the founder of startup bank Monzo, is leaving the company at the end of the month, citing struggles with pandemic-related stress and frustrations leading a large bank. TechCrunch reported on Wednesday night that Monzo staff had been informed of Blomfield’s decision to leave the app-only bank. Blomfield founded Monzo in 2015 as one of Britain’s first digital only banks. He has grown it into one of the most significant challengers to emerge in recent years, with almost 5 million customers.
Beijing-based ByteDance recently launched its own third-party payment service for Douyin, the Chinese version of its hit short video app TikTok, as it presses to expand into the e-commerce business in China. “The set-up of Douyin Pay is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” Douyin said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday. Users of Douyin, which accumulated 600 million daily active users, previously could use Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay, the country’s two ubiquitous third-party mobile payment channels, to buy virtual gifts for livestreamers or items from shops on the platform.
Joker’s Stash, by some accounts the largest underground shop for selling stolen credit card and identity data, says it’s closing up shop effective mid-February 2021. The announcement came on the heels of a turbulent year for the major cybercrime store, and just weeks after U.S. and European authorities seized a number of its servers. The Russian and English language carding store first opened in October 2014, and quickly became a major source of “dumps” — information stolen from compromised payment cards that thieves can buy and use to create physical counterfeit copies of the cards.
Much has been written over the years about the seemingly unending succession of data breaches involving credit card and other personal payment data. But little is known about the so-called dark Web, the sites where these data thieves set up shop to sell what they’ve pilfered. It turns out these markets are exemplars of free-market capitalism, with prices varying widely not only by type of credential but also by country, according to data released Wednesday by Comparitech, a United Kingdom-based researcher that looked at more than 40 illicit online bazaars between Dec. 18 and Jan. 15.
China’s central bank has proposed stepping up antitrust measures for companies in the non-bank payments industry, such as Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay. Under draft rules proposed on Wednesday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) can advise the state council’s antitrust committee to stop companies abusing their dominant position or even break up a non-bank institution if it “severely hinders the healthy development of the payment service market”.
The Treasury Department on Friday said it fined Capital One Financial Corp. for “willfully failing to implement and maintain” effective anti-money-laundering controls. As part of the settlement, Capital One admitted that it “willfully failed to file thousands of suspicious-activity reports,” according to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The allegations pertain to a check-cashing group that Capital One acquired when it bought North Fork Bank in 2006. FinCEN said it had assessed a $390 million penalty but that it agreed to give Capital One credit for a $100 million penalty it paid to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2018.
Janet Yellen, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, urged lawmakers on Tuesday to “act big” on coronavirus relief spending, arguing that the economic benefits far outweigh the risks of a higher debt burden. In more than three hours of confirmation hearing testimony, the former Federal Reserve chair laid out a vision of a more muscular Treasury that would act aggressively to reduce economic inequality, fight climate change and counter China’s unfair trade and subsidy practices.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 900,000, still a historically high level that points to ongoing job cuts in a raging pandemic. The Labor Department’s report Thursday underscored that President Joe Biden has inherited an economy that faltered this winter as virus cases spiked, cold weather restricted dining and federal rescue aid expired. The government said 5.1 million Americans are continuing to receive state jobless benefits, down from 5.2 million in the previous week.
Bank of America on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ expectations as the firm released some of the cash it had set aside for loan losses. The bank said profit fell 28% to $5.47 billion, or 59 cents a share, compared with the 55 cent estimate of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Revenue fell 10% to $20.2 billion, missing the estimate by about $500 million. “In the fourth quarter, we continued to see signs of a recovery, led by increased consumer spending, stabilizing loan demand by our commercial customers, and strong markets and investing activity,” CEO Brian Moynihan said in the release.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and General Motors Co. along with Mastercard announced the formation of a multi-year relationship for co-branded rewards-based credit cards. Goldman Sachs will be the issuing bank for GM’s credit card programs, with a targeted start of September 2021. Mastercard will remain network of choice for the offerings. “We chose to partner with Goldman Sachs because of their proven ability to innovate,” said Chuck Thomson, GM general manager of retail sales and marketing support.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, today announced executive leadership appointments for two newly created positions, capitalizing on its internal leadership talent and building on its commitment to continuous innovation and to delivering value for clients and other stakeholders. Byron Vielehr, Head of Payments and Digital Solutions at Fiserv, has been appointed Chief Digital and Data Officer. Vielehr will lead integrated digital and data strategic growth initiatives across Fiserv.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced a technology integration with Billtrust, a B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated B2B payments leader. Through REPAY’s participation in Billtrust’s Business Payments Network (BPN), REPAY’s corporate customers will instantly gain the ability to automate electronic payments to Billtrust’s vast network of suppliers, distributors and vendors – both accelerating and simplifying the payment process, while also further scaling adoption of virtual credit cards.
Quickly and easily receiving payouts of winnings is the most important factor for U.S. sports bettors when selecting an online sportsbook, and prioritized by 37% of players, according to research released today by Paysafe, a leading integrated payments platform. The latest All the Ways Players Pay report also suggests that offering digital wallets and other alternative payment methods allows sportsbooks to overcome the challenge of card declines.
Nuvei Corporation, the global payment technology partner of thriving brands, announced that its wholly owned subsidiary has received approval to support the sports betting industry in Tennessee. The Sports Wagering Committee of the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation has approved Nuvei’s registration as a vendor. The approval authorizes Nuvei to provide its innovative payment technology to all licensed and regulated sports betting operators across the State.
Strong growth continued on the ACH Network in the final quarter of 2020, with 7 billion payments made, an increase of nearly 9% from a year earlier. Combined with data on check payments, the results show the dramatic impact of the pandemic on the use of payments by Americans, businesses and government agencies compared to a year ago, before the pandemic had significantly impacted the U.S. economy. “Using the modern ACH Network for remote, electronic payments is an even better choice today for American consumers, businesses, and government agencies,” said Jane Larimer, Nacha President and CEO.
As retailers consider how to build on the digital momentum in 2020, a new holiday spending report shows a more than 80% increase in digital gift card (eGift) sales and a nearly 40% increase in overall eCommerce gift card sales during the holiday season. The Blackhawk Network BrandedPay™ Post-Holiday spending report based on consumer research and Blackhawk’s own U.S. sales data found consumer spending exceeded holiday projections from the organization’s earlier BrandedPay™ Holiday Shopping Preview for both eCommerce and digital gifting, a trend that is poised to continue.
NetCents Technology Inc., a cryptocurrency payments company, would like to provide an update on the NetCents Cryptocurrency Credit Card. "This development couldn't have come at a better time, Cryptocurrencies are really at that inflection point of growth, moving from "early adopters" to a larger consumer group we call 'the new generation' of FinTech clientele. Our predictions on the price of Bitcoin has come to pass. We expect wallets to exceed 100 million units in the near future, and that is just scraping the surface of a multi-billion market."
WEX, a leading financial technology service provider, announced its collaboration with online business management platform MYOB to deliver B2B payments for Australian businesses. MYOB provides business and accounting software to 1.2 million businesses in Australia and New Zealand. The collaboration gives WEX customers access to MYOB’s business payment platform to pay their suppliers via WEX virtual credit cards.
A cross-border payment platform, dLocal, that connects global merchants to emerging markets announced a new partnership deal with embedded lending platform Dinie. The new partnership allows global merchants to offer installment payments, or a pay later approach, to their customers in Brazil as a form of small business lending, according to a press release. The Dinie pay later solution enables merchants to get paid up-front and in full, while their customers benefit from paying in three-to-nine-month installments.
UnionPay International (UPI) announced its cooperation with the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Military Bank) in Vietnam to issue 600,000 virtual cards supporting online and QR Code payment, marking the first massive rollout of UnionPay virtual cards in the country. Mobile payment service has become a major driving force behind UnionPay's business localization in global markets. More than six million UnionPay virtual cards were issued outside Mainland China last year, with over half issued in Southeast Asia.
DNA Payments Group (DNA), a fast-growing vertically integrated payments company, has acquired Active Merchant Services (also known as Active Payments), a UK-based independent sales organisation with more than 2,500 merchants. This acquisition brings DNA’s customer base to c. 30,000 merchants and 57,000 terminals in the UK and EU with the actual processing volumes of transactions to over £5.5 billion per annum. This transaction marks DNA’s third acquisition in the last 14 months as it plans to further expand in its core markets with more acquisitions in different segments of payments value chain planned for this year.
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