RETAIL BRIEFSANNOUNCEMENTSThe AnywhereCommerce MePOS 5-in-1 tablet POS platform took first place in the Sandbox 2016 Innovation Competition, co-sponsored by the Southeast Acquirers Association and the Electronic Transactions Association. "We are very proud that the independent investor judges for Sandbox selected the MePOS platform as an award winner from among a broad range of innovative payments solutions," said William Nichols, President and Chief Executive Officer for AnywhereCommerce.
Applied Predictive Technologies Inc. and its Network Planner with MasterCard Insights software were honored with a Bronze American Business Award. This accolade was for the Best New Product or Service of the Year: Big Data Solution category.
BigCommerce Pty. Ltd. closed a $30 million round of funding led by GGV Capital with participation from existing investors including General Catalyst Partners, Revolution Growth, SoftBank Capital, Tenaya Capital, Split Rock Partners LLC, Telstra Ventures and American Express Ventures. "This new financing follows on the successful launch of several new products, our partnerships with major players in ecommerce like eBay and Square, and our successful expansion into the midmarket," said Brent Bellm, Chief Executive Officer of BigCommerce.
Bizfi reported that it originated more than $144 million in financing to 3,605 small businesses in the first quarter of 2016. This is a company record in originations for any one quarter, resulting in a 49 percent year-over-year increase over the $96 million originated in the first quarter of 2015, the company noted, adding that it has provided more than $1.6 billion in financing to more than 29,000 small businesses across the United States since 2005.
CashStar Inc. won the 2016 PX Payments Award for the Best Prepaid or Payments Innovation. CashStar was recognized for its innovative re-gifting capabilities, which are available as part of the CashStar Commerce platform. The re-gifting solution allows gift card recipients to easily forward digital gift cards to family and friends with a personalized message, resulting in an enhanced gifting experience while ensuring the integrity and security of the digital card, CashStar noted.
EMVCo gave the green light to FIME's laboratories and global test tool to support chip manufacturers in confirming alignment with the latest EMVCo Application Activation User Interface (AAUI) Proximity Payment System Environment (PPSE) test plan. The PPSE identifies and presents the compatible contactless payment applications when a POS terminal is in range. The AAUI enables end users to predefine the payment application to be used for payment.
"The combination of AAUI and PPSE brings real value to consumers by automatically launching the preselected payment application when a consumer is making a mobile payment," said Oleg Kosine, Head of Marketing – Payment Vendors at FIME. "We look forward to assisting manufacturers in certifying their products."
Fattmerchant Inc., a subscription-based merchant services provider that reported it offers unlimited credit card processing at direct cost, closed a $1.4 million funding round led by the investors leading its original seed round in 2015. Wet Paint Ventures, Florida Angel Nexus, venVelo and other accredited investors from Central Florida contributed to the round, as well as new strategic investor Phil Rawlins, founder and President of Orlando City Soccer Club.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is rolling out mobile payments in its U.S. locations. The quick service restaurant chain's new system is compatible with Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and is available in some restaurants now. System-wide adoption is expected to be completed by summer's end 2016. This initiative comes on the heels of KFC's recommitment to improving the customer experience, which involved more than 100,000 hours of retraining for all employees. A redesign of 70 percent of the company's U.S. restaurants is also underway.
In addition to enabling users to tap and pay with their Android, Apple and Samsung devices inside restaurants, the mobile payment system will also be functional in KFC drive-through windows.
For the first time, the Midwest Acquirers Association will host a portfolio valuation workshop during its annual meeting July 26 to 28, 2016. Interested parties will work with a team of representatives from Sterling Payment Technologies LLC, Preston Todd Advisors, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to learn how to create more value for their businesses. The workshop is designed to offer vital insights into the factors that increase the worth of a company to buyers – whether it's today or 20 years down the road.
The PCI Security Standards Council published version 3.2 of its data security standard for payment software, the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS). The PA-DSS is used by payment application vendors to ensure their software products will protect payment card data from theft. PA-DSS version 3.2 aligns with the recently released Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard version 3.2. Both updates address growing threats to customer payment information.
Vantiv Inc. was awarded the 2016 Card-Not-Present (CNP) Award in the Best Processor category as both a Judges Choice Award and Customer Choice Award recipient. Vantiv noted that it is one of only two companies at the 2016 CNP Awards recognized by both judges and customers as tops in a single category. Worldpay US was also named the Judges and Customer Choice for Best Payment Service Provider, marking its fourth and fifth wins in four years at the CNP Expo.
To speed EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chip card processing, Verifone Inc. released guides on usage of the Visa Quick Chip and MasterCard M/Chip Fast products. These are intended to provide an overview of these Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide initiatives as well as information about requirements for implementing them on Verifone payment solutions. The documents include the Faster EMV Contact Processing Overview, Faster EMV Contact Processing FAQ, Visa Quick Chip Guide and MasterCard M/Chip Fast FAQ.
RESEARCHRegulatory changes coming from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may require lenders to take new steps to ensure consumers can repay short-term, vehicle title and open-end loans; deposit advance products; and certain installment loans. With this in mind, FactorTrust released pertinent data in its latest Underbanked Index. Focused on consumers' ability to repay (ATR), the index highlights how deserving consumers are more likely able to obtain loans when lenders take alternative data into consideration.
"In order to maintain business growth while adhering to the CFPB's rules, alternative credit data will be a critical component in analyzing a consumer's ATR," said Greg Rable, Chief Executive Officer of FactorTrust. The relationship of debt-to-income and default rate can be more accurately gauged when viewed through the prism of alternative credit data, giving a more accurate picture of a consumer's true ATR."
Forrester Research Inc. launched a new report series focused on the most innovative technology providers in today's ever-changing digital landscape. The Breakout Vendor reports were launched in conjunction with Digital Tranformation 2016, the firm's forum for technology management and digital business leaders. The series is designed to help businesses stay up to date on the most promising technology innovations and the companies behind them.
A Hyperwallet Systems Inc. Top Trends report covers key trends predicted to drive the future of global payments. The report discusses enhanced expectations of both payers and payees, the new, emerging global payments infrastructure, the drive to bring the unbanked and underbanked into the disbursements fold, a new alliance between digital payout players and traditional banks, and increasing transparency throughout global payment structures.
The Smart Card Alliance and the International Parking Institute revised their 2015 white paper, EMV and Parking, to provide current information on the technology and refreshed scenarios covering the critical aspects of deploying EMV-compliant solutions within the parking infrastructure. The paper covers relevant technology and implementation options, stakeholder considerations and contactless payment relationships.
Splitit released results of its Consumer Credit Card Trends survey based on the responses of over 1,000 U.S. credit card holders. The survey evaluated consumer credit card trends and consumer sentiment toward paying in interest-free installments, compared with traditional promotional incentives, such as discounts and free shipping. Most notably, the survey found that 54 percent of credit card users prefer installments over free shipping.
PARTNERSHIPS3scale integrated Adyen's payment service into its application programming interface (API) management platform, with the intent of making it easier for more companies to monetize their APIs. The feature is available to all API providers on 3scale plans that include billing and monetization (Power, Pro and Enterprise levels). The addition of Adyen to 3scale's portfolio of payment gateway integrations makes it even easier to manage and monetize large volumes of API transactions across continents, and payment methods, the company said.
Clearent LLC and Instore integrated their respective solutions so that merchants can enjoy Instore's intelligent design and full suite of POS features alongside Clearent's end-to-end payment platform. With Clearent's reseller network and direct access to merchants, the companies expect the partnership will help drive Instore into new and existing verticals. Instore CEO Matt Niehaus said, "We're excited to see Clearent's product suite help us welcome more merchants to the Instore family."
Password and online identity management provider Dashlane Inc. expanded its global presence through a partnership with Grupo Financiero Banamex S.A. de C.V., Mexico's largest bank. Through the deal, Dashlane provides Banamex customers six months of Dashlane Premium for free and VIP access to its Spanish-language support, as well as the ability to shop faster using Banamex credit cards stored securely in Dashlane's wallet product.
Deputy, a global workforce management solution provider, joined forces with payment solutions provider Square Inc. to create a robust digital business management solution for restaurant owners and retailers. With the integration, Deputy customers are able to integrate business sales and labor cost tracking from Square with staffing and timesheet management, creating total visibility and control for key business management functions, the companies stated.
Equinox Payments and PayJunction launched PayJunction's Smart Terminal, a semi-integrated solution devised to connect PayJunction's cloud-based Rest API with the Equinox L5200 terminal to seamlessly process in-person payments. According to the companies, the joint solution eliminates the process of EMV Level 3 certification. Free to qualified customers, the Smart Terminal not only allows businesses to process EMV chip cards, traditional magstripe cards and contactless payments like Apple Pay; it also supports advanced features including signature capture and digital receipts.
In conjunction with Kount Inc., BlueSnap Inc. released the Cleanse Report tool to help merchants analyze their sales traffic and develop an action plan to optimize their sales funnels. By combining payment data from BlueSnap's Powered Buy Platform and shopper data from Kount's fraud engine, BlueSnap said it can now give merchants a much deeper understanding of consumers they are attracting to their websites. "A clean sales funnel is the goal of all our customers; now they have the tools to work toward eliminating fraud, chargebacks and returns and maximizing sales opportunities," said Ralph Dangelmaier, BlueSanp CEO.
In other company news, Kount and Ethoca Ltd. integrated Ethoca Alerts into the Kount Complete cloud-based fraud detection solution. This effort is designed to help the partners' joint merchant customers safely increase ecommerce acceptance and eliminate the damaging, costly impact of fraud and chargebacks. As a fully integrated component of Kount Complete, merchants do not have to carry out any additional integration, the companies noted.
Lightspeed POS Inc., a cloud-based POS system for retailers and restaurateurs, partnered with retail hardware provider SilverEdge LLC to offer merchants a simple and fast way to get their businesses up and running. "With SilverEdge, we are making it easier than ever for merchants to open their first store or add new locations by providing everything they need to build, manage and grow their business in one place," said JP Chauvet, President of Lightspeed.
Linq3 incorporated Play at the Pump technology with the Commander Site Controller from Verifone to power the sale of lottery draw games directly at the pump. Play at the Pump was created to bring the lottery to busy consumers, delivering a convenient, secure way to play on-the-go. With a swipe of a payment card at the gas pump, consumers can purchase lottery draw games in less than 20 seconds, according to Linq3.
North American Bancard Holdings LLC's POS partner Aldelo LP reached full EMV integration with NAB's front-end omnichannel payment platform NAB Velocity. This integration enables Aldelo to offer its merchants Ingenico's Telium 2 series of EMV-ready solutions, allowing merchants to accept EMV payment cards immediately; it also helps to secure consumer information through technology that eliminates sensitive cardholder data from the POS, NAB stated.
ShopAdvisor Inc. and Gravy partnered to integrate Gravy's Location Verification Service with ShopAdvisor's Intelligence Suite. The objective is to enable business owners to deliver more contextually relevant content experiences with geo-precision. "By integrating our offerings, we are delivering a first-of-its-kind expanded location intelligence that engages consumers wherever they may be, in the way they want, with personalized content and offers," said Jeff Papows, CEO of ShopAdvisor.
Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) entered into an agreement with Featurespace Ltd., a global provider of adaptive behavioral analytics, to reduce fraud for its clients with the ARICSM engine, a machine learning software platform designed to deliver real-time decision capabilities. "We will incorporate these capabilities across the credit risk lifecycle, enabling our issuers to catch more fraudulent transactions while dramatically reducing false-positive alerts for genuine transactions," said Andrew Mathieson, Group Executive, Issuer Product Group at TSYS.
ACQUISITIONSNXT-ID Inc. entered into a purchase agreement to acquire 100 percent of the membership interests of LogicMark LLC, a provider of unmonitored personal emergency response devices. Per the agreement, NXT-ID Inc. will acquire LogicMark for $20 million in cash, with an anticipated closing date no later than June 30, 2016, subject to customary closing conditions, including a financing contingency, NXT-ID reported.
Upserve Inc. acquired Breadcrumb from Groupon Inc., creating what Upserve stated is the industry's largest cloud-based restaurant management platform serving more than 6,000 restaurants in every U.S. state. Bringing together Breadcrumb's mobile POS system with Upserve's smart management assistant allows Upserve to deliver the most complete suite of solutions purpose-built for restaurants to increase profit, improve guest experiences, lift productivity, and reduce costs, Upserve said.
APPOINTMENTSSquare appointed Lord Paul Deighton of the United Kingdom to its Board of Directors. Deighton served as the United Kingdom's Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, CEO of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and as a partner at Goldman Sachs. "Paul's international banking expertise, commitment to community development, and ability to make things happen adds great value to our Board," said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square. "I'm excited to have him on the team, especially as we continue to scale our business internationally."
ABC Financial promoted both Stephanie Johnson and Bob Whisnant to Executive Vice President positions. In her new role, Johnson is charged with leading and fostering growth of the client relations teams and driving a consistent, exceptional customer experience. Whisnant, an 18-year ABC veteran, will now lead the company's human resources, training and development, operations, sales, information technology and software development efforts.
Ingenico ePayments invited Joseph Leija to join the company as its new General Manager for North America. Leija brings more than 18 years of experience in cross-border payments, and has worked with many of the top 100 global ecommerce merchants, enabling them to expand their businesses internationally, Ingenico said. Most recently, Leija was with Sage Payment Services, helping to expand the company's footprint among associations and independent software vendors.
Camille Mauerhan joined Chargeback.com in March 2016 as the company's Senior Vice President of Sales. Mauerhan has 20 years' experience in payments. "Camille is a seasoned professional and very well connected and has been doing this for a long time," said Dave Wilkes, Chargeback.com Chairman and CEO. "I've had a chance to know her personally and professionally for many years."
Jeff Napper, President and CEO of LBS Financial CU of Westminster, Calif., was elected by the board of directors of CO-OP Financial Services to serve as Chairman of the company's board. In addition to Napper, three other credit union leaders were elected to officer positions on CO-OP's board: Allan McMorris as Vice-Chairman and Chairman-Elect, Chuck Purvis as Treasurer, and Benson Porter as Secretary.
National Merchants Association appointed Angelo Ponzi as its Chief Strategy Officer. Working closely with CEO Heather Petersen, Ponzi is now responsible for spearheading corporate strategy, as well as developing and implementing strategic marketing initiatives fostering company growth. "Angelo is a visionary with proven experience growing companies and helping them succeed on a global scale," Petersen said.
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