RETAIL BRIEFSAdyen made its POS solution available to U.S. retailers, who can now connect their POS, online and mobile purchases in one, Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) -compliant payments solution using a single dashboard. Merchants can accept all major credit cards in the United States and Europe, including those of Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide, American Express Co., Discover Financial Services, Diners Club, China UnionPay and JCB International Co. Ltd., as well as U.S. debit payment methods including Pulse and Star.
Multichannel retail management platform Brightpearl closed its latest round of venture funding raising $11 million for a grand total of $30.5 million. Investors included Eden Ventures, MMC Ventures, and Notion Capital, supplemented by a loan from Silicon Valley Bank and Columbia Lake Partners. The funding will be used to boost growth in Brightpearl's San Francisco sales and marketing office, as well as to make enhancements to engineering, service and support.
Cayan LLC introduced a new compensation plan, now providing its agents and ISOs with a more aggressive revenue sharing model with added flexibility. The new plan includes different levels based on production and all agents can maximize their income with this new plan, Cayan stated, adding that the new plan includes the highest split and lowest buy rates ever offered, and a lower production threshold. Also, multiple bonus opportunities are available each month on top of revenue share.
"This new compensation plan is one of the most competitive in the industry with up to 85 percent revenue share or a signing bonus of up to $7,000," the company said. "With Cayan, agents choose how they earn and they are always guaranteed lifetime residuals." To learn more about Cayan's Agent and ISO program, visit http://cayan.com/agent.
The CO-OP Financial Services board publicized the forthcoming retirement of President and Chief Executive Officer Stan Hollen in May 2016. Hollen will continue to provide strategic support to the CO-OP Board and the new President/CEO post-retirement. "We are making his [Stan's] retirement plans known to the industry five months in advance in order to ensure a smooth CEO recruitment process and transition," said Doug Ferraro, Chairman of the Board of CO-OP, and President/CEO of Bellco Credit Union.
MasterCard Worldwide added JetBlue to its stable of merchants accepting digital payments with MasterPass. Available later this year on the airline's website and mobile app, MasterPass will speed the booking experience, MasterCard said. With MasterPass, shoppers can safely pay for what they want at thousands of merchants, online or in app, using any device, the company added. The wallet securely stores shoppers' preferred payment and shipping information, which is accessible with one click after account sign-in.
NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association introduced the NACHA Challenge, a team competition to foster new ways to improve the automated clearing house end-user experience by filling market gaps or removing friction points. The NACHA Challenge is open to innovators, thinkers and practitioners from any entity, including corporations, academic institutions, nonprofits, think tanks, financial institutions, solution providers, and others. Winners will be heralded at the April Payments 2016 conference.
Olo, a digital ordering/delivery solution for multilocation restaurants, raised $40 million from The Raine Group, a global merchant bank focused on technology, media and telecommunications. The funds will be used for growth and to further enhance Olo's offerings. "Our goal is to build a major independent company that helps to reinvent the way restaurants and other local retailers do business in the digital age," said Noah Glass, Olo founder and CEO.
Financial technology innovation company R3 CEV completed a ground breaking distributed ledger experiment involving 11 of the world's largest financial institutions (FIs). Participants were able to explore the technology's potential to execute financial transactions instantaneously across the global private network. The banks simulated exchanging value, represented by tokenized assets on the distributed ledger, without the need for a centralized third party.
USAePay released version 2.0.4 of its retail POS application called USAePay POS Payment System. Available now on the iTunes Store, the app includes new features, improvements in itemized orders, along with management of products, customers and sale transactions. "This newest addition to our iOS mobile solutions not only looks great on all of the latest Apple iOS devices, but also takes advantage of all the new technology," said USAePay CEO Ben Goretsky.
Visa reported that tokenization is now live with NAB Pay, National Australia Bank's new mobile payment service that enables customers to use their mobile phone to make in-store purchases without physical cards. United Overseas Bank also implemented the Visa Token Service as part of its digital wallet, UOB Mighty. The service allows UOB Visa credit or debit card members to make contactless payments with a near field communication-enabled Android smartphone by launching the UOB Mighty app, selecting "Pay," entering a PIN and tapping to pay at NFC-enabled terminals in Singapore and overseas.
Visa said Visa Token Service is a new security technology that replaces sensitive payment account information found on payment cards, such as the 16-digit account number, expiration date and security code, with a unique digital identifier or token that can be used to process payments without exposing account details.
The Women's Network in Electronic Transactions congratulates W.net Board member and ControlScan CEO Joan Herbig for the company's compliance support team being named a "Best Support Team of the Year" finalist for the 12th Annual 2016 Global Excellence Awards. "I salute Joan Herbig for being a leader and an innovator in our industry," said W.net President, Chris Lee, President, NA Strategic Partnerships & Emerging Markets at Moneris Solutions Corp.
RESEARCHAcculynk Chief Executive Officer Ashish Bahl predicts continuing growth in the 'on demand' labor market will result in explosive growth in direct-to-debit payments, fueled by the needs of 'shared economy marketplace' companies such as Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit. "Both employers and workers need a fast, efficient and secure method for making sporadic payments and the traditional bi-weekly payroll just doesn't work," said Bahl.
The Bancorp Inc. released its next Finetics Studio interview series: The Impact of EMV on Fraud featuring Julie Conroy, Research Director, Aite Group; Dan Rosen, Founder and General Partner, Commerce Ventures; Render Dahiya, CEO, Arroweye Solutions; and Charles Crawford, Senior Vice President, Payment Acceptance, The Bancorp. The videos highlight conversations with some of the industry's most influential players about the evolution of fraud in payments.
Cash is preferred by almost four out of five consumers when they need to pay someone back. This, and additional findings taken from a recent Cardtronics Inc. survey, reveal that cash remains widely used, despite people having access to and using a greater variety of payment methods. The Cardtronics survey canvassed more than 1,000 U.S. adults, with survey data also uncovering surprising facts about how the millennial generation uses cash.
Fiserv Inc. published a white paper with results of a year-long study measuring the return on investment of mobile banking services for financial institutions. The analysis shows mobile banking adoption is associated with lower attrition, use of more products and an increase in transactions. The study included eight credit unions and nine banks, and evaluated data from more than 67,000 mobile banking users.
Newtek Business Services Corp. released the SB Authority Index of small business indicators for November 2015, which reached 131.05 points. Approved Small Business Administration lending volumes, new entity formation and the Russell Microcap Index led the increase. The SB Authority Index is up 0.14% from October 2015 and up 1.20% on a year-over-year comparison. According to the Index, the trend appears flat, and does not follow on earlier expressed optimism.
PARTNERSHIPSCredit card processing provider, American Payment Solutions expanded its integrated credit card processing to add Sage 300 credit card processing. Phillip Heath, President of APS, stated, "This integration increases our solution set to our Sage Resellers by offering a trusted option to provide to their client base in both Canada and the United States." With this new offering, APS also celebrated its affiliation with North American Payment Solutions and its new office in Ontario, Canada. APS said this expanded presence will enable the company to better serve its Canada-based partners and clients.
Avalara Inc. announced Shopify Plus has completed certification and integrated Avalara's Compliance Cloud solution directly into its platform. The service offering will be made available to Shopify Plus merchants, streamlining and automating calculations of hundreds of thousands of complex and ever-changing tax rates, rules and jurisdictions. Shopify Plus merchants will benefit from an automated system that calculates tax for every invoice line item, the companies said.
DonorPerfect online fundraising software partnered with raisin enabling DonorPerfect clients to adopt peer-to-peer fundraising as a way to more effectively engage and expand their donor network and generate revenue. Jon Biedermann, Vice President of Fundraising Products for SofterWare Inc., the company behind DonorPerfect, said, "We're thrilled to partner with raisin. After an exhaustive search, we feel their technology and solution are the best fit for thousands of DonorPerfect clients."
ParTech Inc. formed an agreement with mobile loyalty and customer resource management technology provider Punchh. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies have integrated the Punchh platform with PAR's Brink POS Software solution for restaurants. "Our collaboration with PAR allows us to deliver a world-class technology solution which will greatly improve the experience for our customers and their guests," said Vic Mahadevan, CEO of Punchh.
ProPay, a TSYS company, now utilizes Tabs3 Software to deliver a fully integrated client bill-pay solution for law firms. Law firms can accept debit and credit cards or electronic funds transfers with instant online signup and no need to enter payment data twice; there is no longer a need to wait days for traditional merchant account underwriting, the companies said.
"Client billing is the lifeblood of any law firm," said Ryan Oakes, Chief Operating Officer of ProPay. "Integrating ProPay payment services with Tabs3 gives law firms greater efficiency and productivity while providing peace of mind that their transactions are secure."
"Teaming with ProPay extends our functionality and provides law firms with an innovative and easy-to-use way for clients to pay their invoices while reducing the burden of operational tasks," said Dan Berlin, President of Software Technology Inc., the maker of Tabs3 and PracticeMaster software.
Quatrro Processing Inc. partnered with Atlantic-Pacific Processing Systems and the two companies will jointly provide cost-effective solutions to enhance card acceptance for merchants and merchant acquiring services to small and medium financial institutions such as community banks and credit unions. It will also empower both parties in leveraging their service offerings to provide tailored solutions to these same small and medium financial institutions.
Singular Payments LLC has been chosen by the Massachusetts Dental Society to provide exclusive merchant services as an Affinity Partner. "We are committed to bringing to this market, not only tangible cost savings, but also tremendous overall value through enhanced customer support, merchant education, and our simplified approach to payment processing billing statements," said Vaden Landers, Chairman & Managing Partner of Singular Payments.
SmartCard Marketing Systems Inc. agreed to partner with BBPOS Ltd. The undertaking will solve problems currently challenging banks and telecom acquirers that are not adequately prepared for EMV deployment and processing due to antiquated solutions "This is an important movement of BBPOS's devices integration with the SmartCard team and CT Payment EMV gateway, it is proof that the technology is leading the industry a step forward and BBPOS has expanded its client base through the cooperation," said Alex Choi, BBPOS CEO.
TransFirst and Bank Mutual Corp. formed a strategic partner relationship. Under the agreement, TransFirst will offer its payment processing products and services to business customers of Bank Mutual, enabling them to access the full suite of TransFirst's payment processing products and services, as well as TransFirst's competitive pricing structure, dedicated and collaborative sales support teams and 24/7, U.S.-based customer support, the companies stated.
(Also, TransFirst is being acquired by Total System Services Inc. [TSYS]. See "TransFirst finds new home: TSYS" in this issue's news section.)
Verifone partnered with Microsoft Corp. to provide EMV-ready payment-as-a-service solutions certified for Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail and Commerce solutions. The solution is built on Verifone's Secure Commerce Architecture, which connects payment terminals directly to the Verifone Payment Gateway; thereby, preventing sensitive payment data from entering POS software and enabling merchants to update devices to support PCI changes without re-certification.
ACQUISITIONSACI Worldwide entered a definitive agreement to sell its Community Financial Services business to Fiserv Inc. Fiserv, an ACI partner and customer, will acquire this business for $200 million in cash. The transaction includes the transfer of employees and customer contracts as well as technology assets and intellectual property. This move is aligned with ACI's UP strategy and vision to become the leading provider of software products and software-as-a-service-based solutions.
Early Warning Services LLC completed acquisition of clearXchange. The initial phase of the combined real-time platform will go live with banks in the first quarter of 2016 and will enable instantaneous person-to-person payments and check deposits. "Our vision for the future is real-time payments that are universally accessible, secure, and provide the experience and convenience that all types of users want," said Paul Finch, CEO at Early Warning.
IBM Corp. acquired IRIS Analytics, a privately held company specializing in real-time payment fraud analytics. "By integrating IRIS Analytics with IBM's counter fraud technology, we will help organizations more accurately detect fraud at scale and speed so that they are in a position to implement countermeasures quickly, with more control and transparency, while at the same time assist with dramatically lowering false positives," said Alistair Rennie, General Manager, Industry Solutions, IBM.
Global bitcoin exchange Kraken acquired major exchanges Coinsetter and Cavirtex. New York City-based Coinsetter, founded in 2012, is one of America's most prominent national bitcoin exchanges. Cavirtex, founded in 2011, was Canada's first bitcoin exchange. Kraken will fully absorb both Coinsetter and Cavirtex brands in the acquisition, and with the two acquisitions, will set the stage for immediate expansion into the North American market.
POSsible POS Inc. completed acquisition of Practical POS Solutions, a Houston-based company that supports Wendy's, Little Caesar's Pizza, Burger King and Church's Chicken franchises. The acquisition of Practical POS Solutions is expected to help accelerate the growth of POSsible POS' specialty software, particularly in the hospitality industry, as POSsible POS continues to deliver on its mission to be the top provider in the nation.
APPOINTMENTSClement joins MetricStream MetricStream Inc. appointed Bert Clement as Chief Financial Officer. Clement joined the MetricStream executive leadership team effective January 4, 2016, bringing over 25 years of experience, combining strategic and tactical financial management at both private venture-backed and publicly held companies. Mr. Clement is a trusted financial advisor and business partner with decades of experience at leading organizations domestically and abroad.
Shopify Inc. named Harley Finkelstein Chief Operating Officer. As Shopify's first COO, Finkelstein will manage Corporate and Business Development, Sales, Shopify Plus, the Shopify Partner program, Shopify's App Store, Merchant Support, and all external and merchant-facing initiatives. Finkelstein joined Shopify in 2010 to support business development, later becoming Chief Platform Officer. He is responsible for the Shopify Partner program, a core competitive advantage for Shopify.
Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced a plan for executive transition whereby David Foss will be named President and Chief Executive Officer on July 1, 2016. Foss, who has served as President of Jack Henry & Associates since July 1, 2014, will assume the additional role of CEO and Jack Prim, the current CEO and Chairman of the Board will become Executive Chairman. Foss began his career in 1985 at NCR and held leadership positions at Advanced Computer Systems and BancTec.
Barclaycard US appointed Curt Hess as CEO. Hess, who has been interim CEO since May of last year, will report to Barclaycard Interim CEO Amer Sajed. Hess has more than 25 years of experience in credit cards, finance, treasury, retail banking, consumer lending, risk, and control. Hess has been with Barclays for eight years, most recently holding the position of Chief Financial Officer for Personal and Corporate Banking in London.
CyberFlow Analytics, maker of Security Network Behavior Analytics solution FlowScape, announced Steve Nye has joined the company as President and Chief Executive Officer. Nye comes out of the Silicon Valley to join other Silicon Valley veterans Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi, Tom Caldwell and Dr. William Wright. He brings a vision for real-time streaming analytics becoming the strategic platform for enterprises to expand Internet of Things threat defense capabilities. 
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