TSG will be heading to Vegas for ETA's TRANSACT next week. Will you be attending the industry's biggest payments meetup? We are excited to be in person again after two years and would love to catch up and discuss your goals for the year. Reach out and schedule time with the team!
There has now been over 40 days of war and absolute horror in Ukraine. Sanctions on people and organizations with Russian links continue to expand in depth and breadth, but the underlying assumption of these punishments are being put to the test; do these oligarchs and their businesses, who if stripped of their Western rights and wealth, not only have the desire but even the capacity to influence Putin in any meaningful way? To put this dynamic in some context, less than 0.001% of Russian people have roughly the same amount of wealth as the remaining 99.8% of adult Russian residents.
Payroc WorldAccess LLC announced late Tuesday it has acquired Iroquois Merchant Services, a Nashville, Tenn.-based payments provider with merchant, government, and nonprofit clients in all 50 states. Terms were not announced. Payroc, a top 30 U.S. processor by payments volume according to rankings by The Strawhecker Group, sees the deal as a conduit into more markets, including global ones. Iroquois, on the other hand, is expected to leverage Payroc’s technology base, including “our differentiating payment technology, in-house processing capabilities, and experienced support team,” said James Oberman, Payroc’s chief executive, in a statement.
The Electronic Transaction Association (ETA) announced the 2022 Forty Under 40 honorees, recognizing the leaders, trendsetters, and innovators shaping the future of the payments technology industry. The class includes individuals whose actions and leadership are trailblazing a new path and driving the industry forward. ETA solicited nominations from across the payments industry, seeking talented payments executives under 40. A highly competitive pool of candidates was submitted by ETA members and industry leaders.
May require account to read. Banks are debating a plan to bring Zelle to the checkout at big retailers. The money-transfer service boomed during the pandemic, when people avoided ATMs and replaced cash and checks with digital money transfers. Zelle recorded some 1.8 billion transactions in 2021 totaling $490 billion, both more than double their prepandemic levels. That growth has opened up new possibilities for Zelle and sparked a disagreement among the banks that own it—a group that includes JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co.
Global private equity investor Advent International is signing a deal to become a majority shareholder in Mangopay, an end-to-end payment solutions provider for marketplaces and platforms. Romain Mazeries, CEO of Mangopay, said in a press release on Wednesday (April 6) that having Advent as a growth partner will give Mangopay access to their “deep payment expertise and network,” which will help boost its development. “Tomorrow, global exchanges, innovative business models and new consumer habits will bring more complexity and intermediaries to the payments landscape.
Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, pointed to a potentially unprecedented combination of risks facing the country in his annual shareholder letter. Three forces are likely to shape the world over the next several decades: a U.S. economy rebounding from the Covid pandemic; high inflation that will usher in an era of rising rates, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting humanitarian crisis now underway, according to Dimon.
Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions (Wnet), the premier non-profit organization serving professional women in the payments and fintech industries, today released its 2021 Annual Report. The four-page infographic highlights the professional organization’s commitment to creating a stronger and more diverse industry by empowering and investing in women. 2021 marked Wnet’s 15-year anniversary and the celebratory year ended with a record number of members, sponsors and programming.
Checkout startup Fast is shutting down, the company’s CEO said in statements posted on the company's website Tuesday, abruptly shuttering a business that had lured $124 million in investments since its founding three years ago.
The speed of Fast's fundraising stands out even among Silicon Valley's successes, said Jeff Fortney, a senior associate at payments consulting firm The Strawhecker Group. "The guy’s a great salesman," Fortney said of Holland. "He sold Fast fast.” That can create an aura that attracts other investors, Fortney said. “Sometimes investors will say 'Look Stripe’s invested in it—it must be good,'” Fortney said in an interview. Now, he's wondering, "Where was Stripe in all this?"
Meta may have given up on its Diem cryptocurrency, but the company is still exploring finance products, according to a new Financial Times report. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reportedly has a few irons in the fire, including virtual currency employees have apparently taken to calling “Zuck Bucks.” Zuck Bucks, seemingly named for Meta founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are “unlikely” to be a cryptocurrency.
Away from South Beach’s pulsing pool parties and the tycoon enclaves dotting Biscayne Bay, Ryan Breslow, one of Miami’s richest residents—and, at 27, one of the world’s youngest billionaires—balances cross-legged atop a blue beanbag pillow in his humble three-bedroom bungalow right on the border of Little Haiti. Breslow spends most days alone at home. He dances to “house disco” music on the AstroTurf in his backyard. He meditates amid soaring palm trees, white Buddha statues and a humming air conditioner. And, from a treadmill desk in his sunroom, near the ceremonial drums, he runs Bolt—his $11 billion (valuation), 700-employee fintech startup that’s out to provide millions of online shops with frictionless one-click checkout à la Amazon.
Walmart's Indian e-commerce company Flipkart has internally raised its IPO valuation target by around a third to $60-70 billion, and now plans a U.S. listing in 2023 instead of this year, two sources with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters. Flipkart, which competes with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) in India's booming e-commerce space, had earlier set an IPO valuation goal of $50 billion, Reuters has reported.
As inflation threatens to weigh on consumer demand, particularly among low-to-middle income consumers, Macy’s says more shoppers could be faced with a consequential choice: Head to the mall or take a summer vacation. “The biggest challenge that we’ve had in terms of thinking about managing through the beginning of 2022, is where is the demand going to come from,” Macy’s chief financial officer, Adrian Mitchell, said during a presentation Thursday morning.
Walmart still holds the throne as the nation’s leading grocer, but competitors are storming the kingdom’s aisles. After Kroger, Aldi was recently crowned the nation’s third-largest grocer by store count, according to data from JLL. The German company was the fastest-growing grocery chain in the US last year, based on both the number of new stores opened and the square footage of those 88 locations.
Costco Wholesale Corporation reported net sales of $21.61 billion for the retail month of March, the five weeks ended April 3, 2022, an increase of 18.7 percent from $18.21 billion last year. For the thirty-one weeks ended April 3, 2022, the Company reported net sales of $130.00 billion, an increase of 16.7 percent from $111.37 billion during the similar period last year.
Chipotle Mexican Grill in October began its journey into the metaverse in partnership with Roblox with its Chipotle Boorito Maze to celebrate Halloween. The duo continues their partnership with the roll-out of the Chipotle Burrito Builder on Roblox, a new simulation experience that will invite players to roll burritos in the metaverse to earn Burrito Bucks, the brand's in-experience currency on Roblox1. The metaverse is commonly seen as the next iteration of the internet, a combination of video and virtual and augmented reality.
What’s most striking about the increases in credit card "swipe" fee increases taking effect this month is the quietude with which they’re unfolding. Contrast that with last year when the mere suggestion of the interchange fee increases for merchants unleashed a firestorm of protest. Retailer and merchant trade groups issued a wave of press releases filled with outrage that their members might be forced to absorb the hikes just as their businesses were recovering from the pandemic.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned Russian darknet marketplace Hydra and cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. The news comes on the day after Hydra was shuttered in a joint operation by the German Federal Criminal Police Office - aka the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA - and U.S. law enforcement agencies. Garantex has been involved in ransomware and other cybercriminal activities targeting U.S. citizens and other entities in the country, the Treasury Department statement says.
IBM is harnessing the power of real-time AI to help banks analyze for fraud during transactions on a "massive scale". Credit card fraud continues to plague consumers around the world, costing the industry $32 billion last year. Banks have been hampered in their efforts to tackle the problem because running deep-learning models at scale in real-time has not been possible due to latency issues, meaning detections models are only run on less than 10% of high-volume transactions.
Bank of Ireland has been fined €463,000 by the Data Protection Commission (DPC) for a number of data breaches from November 2018 to June 2019 affecting customer personal information. The DPC said it investigated the series of data breaches made by the bank, which impacted more than 50,000 customers. The notifications concern the corruption of information in the Bank of Ireland’s data feed to the Central Credit Register (CCR), a system that stores loan information.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Wednesday about the economic shock waves set off by the war in Ukraine, including disruptions to the global flow of food and energy. "Russia's actions represent an unacceptable affront to the rules-based, global order, and will have enormous economic repercussions in Ukraine and beyond," Yellen said during her testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.
As we lapped two years since the first Covid lockdowns, March reinforced the ongoing rebalance to pre-pandemic ways of consumer spending. From airlines to lodging, spending on services is making its comeback, while in-store retail sales are rebounding as consumer mobility increases. According to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment, total retail sales excluding auto increased 8.4% year-over-year (YOY) and 18.0% compared to pre-pandemic spending (2019), not adjusted for inflation.
A measure of U.S. supply-chain pressures rose to a record, adding to already stiff inflationary headwinds from logistics amid dwindling warehouse space and unprecedented inventory costs. The Logistics Managers’ Index, released Tuesday, advanced for a third straight month in March, reaching 76.2 from 75.2 in February. The monthly survey, released by Colorado State University and affiliated with four other American universities, asks logistics managers about inventories, warehousing and transportation.
The Federal Reserve's fight against inflation will spark a recession in the United States that begins late next year, Deutsche Bank warned on Tuesday. The recession call -- the first from a major bank -- reflects growing concern that the Fed will hit the brakes on the economy so hard that it will inadvertently end the recovery that began just two years ago. "We no longer see the Fed achieving a soft landing. Instead, we anticipate that a more aggressive tightening of monetary policy will push the economy into a recession," Deutsche Bank economists led by Matthew Luzzetti wrote in the report.
Paysafe Limited, a leading specialized payments platform, announced that fintech industry leader, Bruce Lowthers, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Paysafe. Lowthers, who will join the company by May 1, 2022, succeeds Philip McHugh, who is stepping down as CEO and as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors. The CEO transition builds on the recent appointment of Daniel Henson as Non-Executive Chairman in March.
Financial technology leader FIS® announces that its Worldpay from FIS business will be the first global merchant acquirer to offer merchants the ability to receive settlement directly in USD Coin (USDC), a fully reserved dollar digital currency. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency pegged to a ‘stable’ reserve asset (such as the U.S. dollar) and can be redeemed one-to-one. USDC is one of the fastest growing, regulated dollar digital currencies with more than $51 billion in circulation as of April 2022.1
American Express and i2c Inc, a provider of digital payment and banking technology, announced an expanded global, multi-product agreement that will enable fintechs and financial institutions around the world to develop and scale innovative payments solutions for consumers and businesses on the American Express global payments network. The agreement signals that the American Express network is ‘open for business’ with fintechs by creating a plug-and-play onboarding platform to bring innovative products to market at speed.
Bank of America launched the Bank of America Institute with the release of its inaugural publication, Consumer Checkpoint, which provides a real-time and holistic view of U.S. consumers’ spending and financial health. Drawing on data and analyses from across the bank and the world, the Bank of America Institute is a new think tank that will provide timely and original perspectives on the economy, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and global transformation.
Adyen, the global financial technology platform of choice for leading businesses, is working with Apple to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone for its U.S. customers later this year. The solution allows Adyen’s U.S. customers to use their iPhones to accept contactless payments, without the need to purchase or manage additional hardware or payment terminals. Adyen is working with enterprise customers and commerce platforms, such as Lightspeed Commerce and NewStore, to bring the feature to even more businesses. With Adyen’s support, NewStore will pilot the new capability with its customer Vince.
ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions announces its launch in Australia– a joint venture between ANZ and global payments services leader Worldline. Australian merchants will have access to some of the world’s most advanced payment solutions, proven internationally and adapted to meet the unique requirements of the Australian market. Worldline is the technology partner of choice for merchants, banks and acquirers across more than 50 countries, with decades of experience in domestic and international payment systems.
BlueSnap, a global payment orchestration platform committed to helping B2B and B2C businesses accept and optimize payments around the world, has launched its Embedded Payments and Payfac-as-a-Service offering for software platforms looking to scale their customer base globally. BlueSnap has been helping software platforms monetise their payments for several years with their Integrated Payments for Platforms. The new Embedded Payments and Payfac-as-a-Service suite expands and innovates on this to include three new products: BlueSnap Dash™, BlueSnap Relay™ and BlueSnap Flex™.
The launch in Germany kick-starts RS2’s issuing and acquiring global strategy. “RS2 today is very well positioned to provide any size of merchant with a tailor-made solution that fits their business needs, differentiating itself from other competitors who provide one-size-fits-all; while small and medium-size merchants in addition to their in-store payment acceptance will be able to build their e-commerce presence in 30 minutes, multi-national merchants and payment services providers will be able to consolidate their entire business on one single platform globally” said Jens Mahlke, CEO of RS2 Financial Services and CFO/COO of RS2 Group.
CardFlight, a leading SaaS payment technology company serving small businesses, announced its SwipeSimple product is in use with more than 100,000 merchants across the United States. SwipeSimple, recognized as easy-to-use, modern payment acceptance software, is available in three software packages: Payments, Terminal, and Register. “Our team is laser-focused on accelerating payment innovation, delivering easy to use software and speed of onboarding for small business owners and their employees,” said Derek Webster, CardFlight Founder and CEO.
Aliaswire, a provider of bill payment and credit solutions for businesses and banks, announced the appointment of financial veteran Brian Bartlett as CFO. In his role, Bartlett will be responsible for financial operations, planning and reporting, human resource management, and helping to shape overall strategy and direction. Bartlett’s experience spans 20 years as an entrepreneurial-minded finance leader with exceptional operational, analytical and planning skills coupled with a roll-up-the-sleeves, can-do mentality.
VizyPay, a leading payment processing company, is celebrating five years of serving small businesses with transparent, money-saving payments solutions. In the years since its founding, the Iowa-based company has revolutionized the payments industry, received countless accolades for its innovative solutions, installed thousands of merchants across the nation and is on track to achieve $4 billion in total payments processed by year’s end.