ANNOUNCEMENTSTo help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the automated teller machine and the 20th anniversary of the ATM Industry Association, ATMIA is requesting nominations for ATM Industry Champions. Designated champions will be honored in two categories: thought leaders, innovators and movers and shakers now active in the industry; and those who are not currently involved in the ATM business. For information on the nomination process, email mike@atmia.com.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim, U.S. Postal Inspector Philip R. Bartlett and Secret Service Special Agent David E. Beach indicted and arrested Michael Mendlowitz and Richard Hart on charges of fraudulently operating a payment card processing company that operated under various names including Commerce Payment Systems. The CPS executives were charged with masterminding a years-long scam that took over $30 million from 10,000 small businesses.
Industry association GlobalPlatform published a technical document entitled GlobalPlatform Systems End-to-End Simplified Service Management Framework Transport v1.0.0. The specifications outline an agreed framework for the service management process for secure transport tickets on mobile devices. Designed in collaboration with the Smart Ticketing Alliance and the GSMA, the document aligns the transport ticketing and mobile communities to ensure all parties operate efficiently and securely under mutually adopted guidelines.
Jumio was selected as the winner of the FinTech Breakthrough Award in the Best Fraud Prevention Platform category. FinTech Breakthrough recognized Jumio's Netverify Trusted Identity as a Service offering for its advanced technology approach in the areas of biometric facial recognition and computer learning. The FinTech Breakthrough Awards honor financial technology companies who excel in creativity, excellence and hard work in the fintech industry.
NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association named the recipients of the 2017 NACHA Payments Awards, which celebrate proven accomplishment and leadership in the payments industry, and recognize and reward payments innovations defining the future. Among the winners, Earthport received the NACHA Excellence in Payments Award, lienwaivers.io was honored with the Judges' Choice Award and the Audience Choice Award went to KeyCorp.
The NFC Forum indicated that 11 new members have joined the organization recently, including CTC Advanced as an Associate Member and 10 other companies participating as either an Implementer Member or serving at the NFC Forum's new Startup Implementer Membership Level. The new members represent a variety of industries and markets worldwide encompassing the Internet of Things, transportation, retail, payment, and automotive fields.
PayJunction received a bronze Stevie Award for the Customer Service Department of the Year - Financial Services & Real Estate category in the 15th annual American Business Awards. More than 3,600 nominations were considered across numerous industries and award categories. "We're honored to be recognized by The American Business Awards as one of the top customer service departments in the country," said Alex Estrada, Operations Manager at PayJunction.
Q-Card received accreditation by EMVCo for its contactless test bench for mobile phase two, which covers universal integrated circuit cards, secure element and host card emulation technologies. The new approval process includes level 1 digital and analog, interoperability, performance and multiple execution environment testing. With this accreditation, Q-Card is able to provide device manufacturers with handset compliance testing for mobile wallet applications.
Signifyd secured $56 million in Series C financing led by Bain Capital Ventures, with additional participation from Menlo Ventures, American Express Ventures and other existing investors. According to Signifyd, this latest round of funding will be used to expand its teams of engineers and fraud experts, and scale its machine learning-enabled Guaranteed Fraud Protection for enterprise merchants across the United States, Europe and Asia.
Worldpay became the first payment processor in the United States to rollout Visa's Quick Chip technology at the POS, which reduces chip card transaction time to about three seconds. Quick Chip technology removes a step in the process requiring transmission of the final amount, authorization and post-authorization while the card is in the POS terminal. Instead, once the card is removed Quick Chip uses the issuer's online response to approve or decline transactions.
RESEARCHA Juniper Research study, Digital Payment Strategies: Online, Mobile & Contactless 2017-2021, predicted the value of digital payments will reach $3.9 trillion this year, representing an increase of more than 14 percent over last year. While the bulk of transaction value (55 percent) will come through online retail purchases for physical goods, person-to-person money transfers are expected to see the largest year-over-year net increase in value, capturing approximately $200 million of the total annual gain.
A new report by Juvo Mobile Inc. predicted data-science driven mobile financial services will significantly impact the global prepaid market, increasing operator revenues by as much as $70 billion. The report, Data Science: Driving Mobile Operator Digital Transformation, demonstrates how establishing financial identities for prepaid subscribers improves operators' business performance and the broader pursuit of digital transformation.
A study from Mobify, analyzing data from 17 years of U.S. census data on retail sales and other in-house sources, reveals the rising importance of mobile conversions on retail revenues as mobile-generated revenue is predicted to overtake desktop this year. According to Mobify's Q1 2017 Mobile Commerce Insights Report, by focusing on easier navigation, speed, one-click purchase and security features retailers can capture more revenue from the mobile channel.
The U.S. Payments Forum released its state-of-the-market Spring 2017 Market Snapshot, which provides an update on the status of the U.S. EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) chip migration, fraud trends, priorities for addressing open payments in transit, industry resources, and recognition of the forum's top contributors and honor roll members for 2016.
Data from the report suggests that perceptions concerning card-not-present fraud following EMV migration could be inflated. "While industry data and corresponding media reports are stating an overall rise in CNP fraud, what we are actually seeing is that the overall proportion of CNP is actually staying relatively even – and perhaps even decreasing – as a percentage of online sales," said Randy Vanderhoof, Executive Director of the U.S. Payments Forum.
PARTNERSHIPSAtlantic Pacific Processing Systems received the endorsement of the Holistic Chamber of Commerce to become the trade organization's preferred payment processing solutions provider. HCC supports holistic, complementary, eco-friendly, and sustainable professionals, practitioners and businesses across North America. APPS will offer HCC members its suite of PCI and EMV-compliant payment solutions, which features enhanced reporting and reconciliation capabilities.
Technology-based merchant services provider Century Business Solutions partnered with NAV-X to enable credit card processing directly within Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017. NAV-X will utilize Century's proprietary payment gateway, EBizCharge, to give thousands of U.S. merchants using Dynamics NAV 2017 the ability to process payments directly from pages in the software.
First Data Corp. and Flywire Corp. formed a strategic alliance to streamline cross-border transactions for their respective client bases. As part of the agreement, both companies entered a reciprocal referral relationship that will allow seamless integration between Flywire's international payment and receivables platform, and First Data's client network and technology solutions. The partnership enables Flywire to expand card payment options for its clients and First Data clients to leverage the Flywire platform to accept large sum international payments.
FIS and The Clearing House Payments Company LLC co-launched a hosted Real-Time Payment (RTP) Incubator service for early-adopter financial institutions in the United States. The service – the first of its kind in the nation – will be offered as a hosted solution and is designed to accelerate the path to real-time payments for U.S. financial institutions using FIS Open Payment Framework technology, and operating via the TCH RTP platform to clear and settle payments.
"For real-time payments to truly take off, banks of all sizes need to have easy, affordable access," said Russ Waterhouse, Executive Vice President, Product Development and Strategy, The Clearing House. "Combining the power of The Clearing House’s Real-Time Payments platform with FIS' leading edge technology and services, we are transforming the payments landscape in the U.S. and around the world."
i2c Inc. and Bento for Business partnered on a prepaid card solution that provides small business owners and their employees a better way to control spending and manage expenses. The Bento prepaid employee expense card leverages i2c's Agile Processing payments platform to deliver such advanced features as integrated alerts, card-level restrictions and digital dashboards for high level visibility and real-time control over spending, the partners noted.
Jack Henry & Associates Inc. entered into a strategic agreement with First Data and PSCU to further expand the credit and debit card platform offered to financial institutions by its JHA Card Processing Solutions group. According to Jack Henry, the partnership further enhances its card platform capabilities with credit, debit, and ATM card processing; and fraud detection and risk management tools. In addition, JHA will refer clients to First Data's STAR Network.
Malauzai Software Inc. partnered with Vantiv Inc. to launch Family Manager: SmartKid Control. The Vantiv solution, powered by Ondot Systems, will be incorporated into Malauzai's mobile platform and can be accessed by its SmartApp users. Through the partnership, financial institutions leveraging the SmartKid Control functionality can offer SmartApp users the added benefit of payment and transaction monitoring.
Mastercard expanded its long-standing relationship with General Motors Co. Customers at more than 4,000 Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac dealerships in the United States, as well as online customers, will be able to order and pay for ACDelco and other service parts, accessories and over-the-air updates for OnStar Go using Mastercard's payment gateway. The partners established the GM Rewards Card program in 1992.
Plaid Technologies Inc. and Dwolla Inc. partnered to deliver a fully-tokenized ACH payment integration solution. The partnership makes it possible for clients to tokenize account and routing numbers and authenticate user bank accounts through Plaid; and accept ACH payments within minutes using Dwolla's ACH application program interface, the partners stated.
Singular Payments LLC recently integrated its payments solution with PracticeSuite's management software. PracticeSuite's cloud-based platform is used by over 43,000 medical professionals to manage medical practices utilizing tools for scheduling, billing, EHR, practice collaboration, and a patient portal to streamline communications. "Custom payments integrations, like this latest one completed with PracticeSuite, have become a primary focus here at Singular Payments," said Vaden Landers, Chairman and Managing Partner at Singular.
Star Micronics Co. Ltd. tapped Quetzal POS Ltd. to provide support for its all-in-one mPOP peripheral, which is now integrated with Quetzal's redesigned iPad POS. Paired with Star Micronics' mPOP, mobile point of purchase, which features a 2-inch receipt printer and cash drawer, the combined system will be targeted to boutiques in the footwear, clothing, cosmetics and fragrance segments. Quetzal POS also plans to add support for Star Cloud Services.
Active Network signed a multi-year agreement with Visa to deliver Visa Checkout across its global activity and event registration platforms. The agreement also entails mutual investment in digital, cross-promotional marketing activities. "With the integration of Visa Checkout across Active's online and mobile properties, even more consumers will have a safe, secure, and seamless way to use their Visa card online," said Sam Shrauger, Senior Vice President, Digital Solutions, Visa.
ACQUISITIONSFleetcor Technologies Inc. signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cambridge Global Payments. Toronto-based Cambridge, founded in 1992, processes over $20 billion in business-to-business (B2B) cross-border payments annually, helping 13,000 business clients make international payments to suppliers and employees. Fleetcor expects the acquisition to drive growth in its B2B cross-border market segment.
Ingenico Group acquired the payment activities of Ukrainian partner BKC. BKC's shareholders and Ingenico reached an agreement for the sale of its Systems of Secure Transactions business unit to Ingenico, through the acquisition of 100 percent of the shares of a newly created legal entity. Oleg Zhukov, Director of SST, said, "Becoming part of the [Ingenico] Group will increase our ability to serve Ukrainian banks and retailers with a complete payment offering."
Vantiv entered an agreement to acquire Paymetric, a portfolio company of Francisco Partners. Headquartered in Atlanta, Paymetric automates B2B payment workflows and tokenizes payments data within enterprise systems. "By becoming part of Vantiv, we will be able to accelerate the development of our advanced payments integration and security solutions," said Asif Ramji, President and CEO of Paymetric.
APPOINTMENTSThe Retail Gift Card Association appointed its 2017-2018 board of directors and executive committee. The new leadership team includes Chair Colleen Dorwart of Cabela's Inc., Vice Chair Erin Wood of Subway, Treasurer Tim Anderson of AMC Theatres and Chair Emeritus Timm Walsh of Regal Cinemas. Ten other retail and industry stakeholders were named as directors.
Sionic Mobile Corp. named Phil Gura to the post of Chief Legal Officer and Executive Director of Fuel Retail. He is responsible for managing relationships with the company's outside law firms, addressing legal and compliance matters and developing business relationships in the fuel retail channel. Gura joins Sionic Mobile from Merchant Customer Exchange where he served as Chief Legal Officer and Head of Government Relations.
First Data welcomed former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly to its Military Advisory Council. The council advises the company on employment, experience, and entrepreneurship program strategies to increase engagement with U.S. veterans, National Guard and Reserve members, and military spouses. "The breadth of knowledge he [Scott] will bring to our team is invaluable," said Tom Higgins, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at First Data.
Mastercard promoted Ed McLaughlin to President, Operations and Technology. McLaughlin succeeds Rob Reeg, who will assume a consulting role during the transition. McLaughlin will oversee Mastercard's technology functions, including the global network, processing platforms, information security and technology operations. For the past 16 months, McLaughlin has served as the company's Chief Information Officer.
i3 Verticals LLC welcomed Marcus Smith to the company as Vice President of Risk and Operations. Smith brings 20 years of experience in the electronic payments industry to i3, having most recently served a large industry peer company in a range of key positions, including Senior Vice President of Merchant Operations and Senior Vice President of Risk Management.
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