ANNOUNCEMENTSThe Electronic Transactions Association released 7 Guiding Principles for CBDC to help guide creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). The ETA said it believes any proposed CBDC should be measured against a common set of principles. As the federal government assesses a potential CBDC, it should carefully consider these principles and ensure that any proposal best serves the needs of consumers, furthers financial inclusion, preserves and strengthens the financial system, and ensures that consumers continue to have access to a robust and innovative array of secure banking and payment options, the association stated. Download the guidance at www.electran.org/wp-content/uploads/2021-ETA-7-Guiding-Principles-of-CBDC.pdf.
Specialized payments platform Paysafe signed a multiyear, global agreement with Amazon Web Services as part of its strategy to become a fully cloud-based payments provider. Through this collaboration, Paysafe is migrating its portfolio of mission critical workloads—including eCash solutions, paysafecard and paysafecash, and its digital wallets, Skrill and NETELLER—to AWS to develop new cloud-native merchant payment and consumer wallet products for its business and consumer customers.
The PCI Security Standards Council published version 1.1 of the PCI Secure Software Standard and its supporting program documentation. The standard is part of the PCI Software Security Framework (SSF). PCI Secure Software requirements provide assurance that payment software is designed, engineered, developed and maintained in a manner that protects payment transactions and data, minimizes vulnerabilities, and defends itself from attack. Version 1.1 introduces the Terminal Software Module, a new security requirements module for payment software intended for deployment and operation on PCI-approved PIN Transaction Security Point-of-Interaction devices. Software intended for deployment and operation on other platforms is not affected by the new requirements.
Star Micronics named BlueStar Distributor of the Year for the 2020 fiscal year. This recognition is given to the distributor who demonstrates an unparalleled level of year-to-year growth and performance within the reseller business development market. "BlueStar remains a dynamic participant in Star's vision and success," said Christine Duffy, director of distribution at Star Micronics. "As we continue to manufacture innovative solutions, BlueStar in turn continues to surpass expectations and support the reseller channel with advanced technology solutions, superior sales support, and services that exceed the growing demand of the market."
RESEARCHArkose Labs released data on the latest fraud trends that indicated an increase in human-bot hybrid attacks. The Q2 Arkose Labs Fraud and Abuse Report also noted an uptick in fraud originating from North America, with the U.S. and Russia vying for the top spot in attack origination. The year started off busy, with heightened attack volumes carrying over from the end of 2020, Arkose stated, adding that by the first quarter's midpoint attacks dropped off in most industries—except for technology and media/streaming. Arkose detected 5 million attacks daily during the first half of the quarter; the overall attack rate dropped significantly as the quarter went on, from a peak of more than 30 percent of sessions being identified as malicious down to a more manageable 17 percent.
A new survey of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) conducted by the Electronic Transactions Association and The Strawhecker Group found that 43 percent of SMBs see digital payments as more important to their businesses now than before the COVID-19 pandemic. As SMBs begin to recover, 38 percent report an increase in sales since the beginning of the pandemic, fewer SMBs are experiencing a decrease in sales (38 percent in 2021 versus 47 percent in 2020). Conducted in April 2021, the survey revealed a notable shift in the ways consumers pay for goods and services. Digital wallets, now accepted by 44 percent of SMBs, are the third most common way to pay after credit/debit cards (70 percent) and cash (64 percent).
Mercator Advisory Group released a report covering the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) lending model, titled Buy Now, Pay Later: Gaining Scale and Disrupting the Status Quo in Lending. The research explains the current market; discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to fintech; and explains the business and cash flow of this emerging credit option. The research compares both consumer and merchant costs in comparison to credit cards. It dispels the claims that the product is a cheaper option for buyers and sellers, as well as covers credit policies used to gain scale and suggests fintechs consider tightening credit policies so that losses do not cannibalize profits.
PARTNERSHIPSDatacap Systems Inc. a hardware- and processor-agnostic payments provider, partnered with Loyalzoo, a digital loyalty card service for small and midsize retailers and eateries, to offer Datacap's POS partners a recurring membership payments option. The Loyalzoo membership platform is available for new and existing partners utilizing Datacap's ecommerce integration, Pay API, available as part of Datacap's NETePay Hosted omnichannel payments platform. Loyalzoo's membership platform allows merchants to easily manage memberships with automatic recurring payments using Datacap tokens, marketing promotions, card updater, multiple site support and success reporting—all via the payment processor of their choice, the partners stated.
Fintech company ENACOMM partnered with Data Center Inc., a developer of banking software and digital banking technologies, to provide API connectivity between DCI's iCoreGO online/mobile solutions and any other core processors. DCI will also leverage ENACOMM's open API stack to empower current DCI clients to choose among other ancillary applications, payments processors and data aggregators of any type. Sarah Fankhauser, president and CEO of DCI, said that thanks to this partnership, "core processor compatibility is no longer an issue for financial institutions who want to take advantage of our market-leading iCoreGO online banking and mobile banking technologies."
Payroc and Ingenico formed a partnership to offer new payment technology that meets the most demanding use cases. The new product line, spotlighted by Payroc as front-line payment terminals, will offer more features for secure, swift payments to agents and merchants, the partners stated, adding that the Ingenico Tetra devices are designed for restaurant, retail and mobile payment acceptance. The devices are also fully integrated with RewardPay Choice, to enable businesses to save thousands in monthly processing fees through compliant surcharging.
ACQUISITIONSEquifax acquired transaction analytics firm AccountScore to boost its ability to offer open banking solutions. Equifax intends to combine its traditional credit bureau information with bank transaction data, a step Patricio Remon, Equifax's European president, said was "a natural next step" for the company. Equifax intends to access open banking data that isn't typically taken into consideration to help demonstrate customers' creditworthiness, a function various fintechs have handled until now.
Nets Group's Paytrail completed the acquisition of Checkout Finland Oy, a payment service provider in Finland. With this acquisition, Nets Group expands its presence in Finland and strengthens its position within ecommerce—a high-growth area across Europe. Checkout Finland, previously part of OP Financial Group, serves both ecommerce merchants and physical stores with a range of payment options and mobile payment solutions. Checkout. It had around 8,000 ecommerce merchants and reported revenues of almost €12 million for 2020, up from €8.2 million in 2019.
APPOINTMENTSOyster Financial, an online financial services platform, appointed Eric Sanabria as its new chief business officer following his service for more than a year as the company's vice president of operations and revenue. Prior to Oyster, Sanabria worked as an executive for Google's Online Partnerships Group for North America, where he was the group's revenue intelligence lead after serving as a strategic partner manager for Google for two years. Previously, Sanabria worked for marketing automation platform Phizzle as both an engineering team project-management lead and adviser to the startup's executive leadership.
DataSeers hired prepaid and payments veteran Jerry Uffner as chief revenue officer. He is expected to play a crucial role in DataSeers' expansion in the banking and payments space. Most recently, he served as senior vice president, head of business development, prepaid and government services at FIS. He has been in the payments industry since 1988, helping pioneer the prepaid payments industry in the mid 1990's and brings decades of relevant payment industry experience to DataSeers. Previous to FIS, he was president and CEO of FirstView Financial and TransCard, both prepaid program managers and processors.
First American Payment Systems Chris Yurko as vice president of integrated payments. In this role, Yurko will be responsible for growing strategic accounts and partner relationships throughout North America. He also will oversee the strategy and vertical focus for the sales channel. Yurko, who joined First American in 2018, brings a broad range of experience to his new position. Previously, Yurko served as director of strategic partnerships at Worldpay. His expertise also includes payment integrations at Apriva and sales at Chase Paymentech.
The company also welcomed Jerry Faith as sales manager. In this capacity, Faith will focus on new partner acquisition, matching integration-focused ISOs with First American's payment technology Faith joins First American from TransPay Solutions and BMT Retail Systems, where he helped business owners reduce costs associated with payroll processing, HR services and business lending through integrated POS solutions. Previously, he served as division director at Get Beyond, where he led a team of SMB advocates. 
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