As the holiday season draws near, cybercriminals are making lists and checking them twice, according to a new study by Arkose Labs. The Q4 Fraud and Abuse Report,” published Nov. 5, 2019, cited a 70 percent increase in bot-driven account fraud. Researchers analyzed over 1.3 billion financial service, ecommerce, travel, social media, gaming and entertainment transactions between July 1 and Sept. 30, and found one in five account openings were fraudulent. Kevin Gosschalk, CEO of Arkose Labs, said the report shows evolving patterns in global cybercrime, which has become broader and more complex in nature, making incentives and victims more difficult to detect.

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Kabbage, the online lender that has been building a business in small-business financing, now wants a slice of the payment processing pie, and in particular business-to-business transactions. The company’s new Kabbage Payments aims to make getting invoices paid faster “as simple as sending a text message.” It’s being offered, at least initially, to Kabbage borrowers. “Since 2011, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of small businesses access over $8 billion in funding,” said Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein. “We know first-hand a primary need is to cover cash-flow gaps while waiting to be paid. Kabbage Payments not only expands our suite of products, but the very definition of our company.”

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Following a long-standing tradition of cooperation among payments enterprises to expand business prospects while bettering the industry, two organizations formed a promising alliance last week. Having determined they share a mission to create better opportunities for women and the men who advocate for them in the fintech and payments industries, the Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions (Wnet) and the European Women Payments Network stated they are “coming together to allow their respective members to share the benefits of both networks.”

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Nearly 100 equipment finance executives convened at Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution on Nov. 6, 2019, to examine technology’s impact on their evolving industry. Monitor, an industry trade publication and resource for equipment finance professionals, hosted Equipment Finance Disrupted+, the first in a new conference series. The one-day event included a mix of keynote presentations, panel discussions and networking opportunities. Eduardo Del Rio, cofounder and president of AA Bankers, a working capital solutions company, found the conference enjoyable and thought-provoking. “It’s important for finance leaders to think outside the box and not just stick to what we know,” he said.

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A new study, Hospitality 2020+ The Reasons Why We Talk About Data-Driven Commerce, published Nov. 5, 2019, by secure commerce technology provider FreedomPay, portrays a prospering but fragmented hospitality market with substantial room for improvement in IT infrastructure and technology integration. While many hotel, lodging, travel and food and beverage businesses have benefitted from online services and increased consumer spending, they are also competing with Airbnb and other technology startups, researchers found.

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Technology startups and legacy brands gathered Oct. 27 to 30, 2019, at the Las Vegas Sands Expo and Convention Center for Money20/20 USA. This year’s theme, Journey to the Future of Money, was reflected in more than 500 presentations, networking meet-ups and trending hashtags #Money2020 and #Money2020USA. The conference drew more than 2,300 senior executives and 3,400 companies, according to event organizers.

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