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Did You Know?
The Strawhecker Group (TSG) has a dynamic and historical data warehouse of 3.5M card-accepting merchants.
TSG's data warehouse covers all 43,000 zip codes in the United States (as represented by the blue columns on the map below).
Data available for merchants includes statistics on attrition, growth, pricing and profitability.
Email TSG to learn more today!
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Payment Gateway Directory: See Who's Who
TSG recently released its expanded and updated Payment Gateway Directory (preview). The eReport features side-by-side comparisons on functionality and company information, covering 3,000 data points from 53 gateways.
Gateway data points (as available) have been primarily gathered from company surveys. Additional research included calls, web research, and internal TSG knowledge.
Click here to purchase. Priced competitively at $2,900.
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It has been almost 20 years since the internet made a paradigm leap in transaction transport, and made simple payment integration available to an exploding community of web developers. Gateways became the plug & pay solution for the tsunami of new web-based, card-not-present merchants. Cha-ching!
 Not these days. When it comes to gateways now, it’s a little bit Jackson Pollock, and a lot of competitive technology. This ain’t your daddy’s gateway.
The old guard processors have all filled out their greater offering with gateway offerings, largely via purchases of third-party products, which led to separate APIs - not very omni-channel.
Many independent gateways have built or are building card present functionality - a process made even clumsier thanks to EMV - under their existing API. Omni-channel, but sometimes with less feature/functionality compared to the processors who have been doing retail for decades.
Continue reading.
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Square Inc., the electronic-payments company run by Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, topped sales estimates for the fourth quarter, bolstered by larger merchants that are contributing an increasing share of Square’s payments volume. The shares climbed as much as 9 percent in extended trading. Square has steadily gained larger merchants on its platform by offering more services such as loans through Square Capital, food delivery through Caviar and tools for managing inventory and analyzing sales. Yet to win a greater share of the market for bigger customers, Square will face competition from more established rivals like PayPal Holdings Inc. and First Data Corp.
Related
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For years, banks have watched as their youngest customers split restaurant checks, shared utility bills, and pitched in for parties using third-party payment apps such as Venmo. Now, they're trying to take back the person-to-person payments business by launching an app of their own. Nineteen banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, are teaming up to start Zelle, a website and app that will let users send and request money much like Venmo does. Bank of America says it is the first to incorporate all of Zelle's capabilities — including the ability to split bills between users — into its own mobile app, starting Wednesday. A standalone Zelle payment app should be available to anyone with a debit card, regardless of where they bank, by the middle of the year.
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CNBC | 2.24.17
Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency," viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year.
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The National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand an appeals court ruling that struck down a controversial 2012 settlement of a class action lawsuit over Visa and MasterCard’s credit card swipe fees. “This alleged ‘settlement’ was a backroom deal that would have done nothing to end price fixing or keep swipe fees from soaring in the future,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said. “Even worse, it includes a provision that would keep merchants from ever suing over this issue again. The Circuit Court did the right thing in tossing this case out and it should not be revived. There are ways to bring swipe fees under control but this settlement is not one of them.”
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The New York Times | 2.22.17
In 2011, Brett King was promoting his book, “Breaking Banks,” and creating a start-up that he hoped would do to the banks what Amazon did to the retail industry and Facebook did to media. “We had grand ideas of being the Facebook of banking, and being a new form of bank account,” Mr. King said recently. Six years later, his company, Moven, has opened only 60,000 of those new bank accounts. Mr. King has now transitioned to selling his software to the banks he once scorned, who use it as a component of their mobile apps.
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TheStreet | 2.21.17
Who's afraid of Russian hackers? U.S. bank regulators including the Federal Reserve, worried that a major intrusion of even one institution's system could put the nation's entire financial network at risk. But representatives of big lenders like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America say they don't need more rules telling them how to manage the threat. The banks argue they're already taking the the matter seriously enough and don't need additional, costly regulations that will quickly become outdated given the ever-increasing sophistication of hackers.
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Total funding for U.S. fintech companies and deal activity dropped significantly in 2016, down to $12.8 billion from $27 billion in 2015, a result of political and regulatory uncertainty, a decline in megadeals and investor caution, according to KPMG's Q4 2016 The Pulse of Fintech report. Despite the drop in total funding for U.S. fintech, 2016 was the third strongest year for fintech investment and second highest year for Venture Capital (VC) fintech investment. On a global basis, total fintech funding declined by almost 50 percent, falling to $25 billion in 2016 from $47 billion in 2015.
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Contactless payment technology is migrating from the plastic card to high street jewellery and watch brands under deals agreed by Barclays with DCK Group and Tappy Technologies. First introduced in 2015, Barclaycard's bPay’s proprietary range - which comprises a wristband, fob, sticker and loop - has recorded a £6.6m spend across 1.1m transactions. The bank has already struck a number of deals in the wearable market, embedding bPay within fashion jewellery at retail clothing chain Top Shop, in mobile phone cases and weaved into jackets from Scottish knitwear brand Lyle & Scott .
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The ants are marching into South Korea: Alibaba spinoff Ant Financial is placing a $200 million bet on the fintech arm of messenger maker Kakao, joining the Chinese payments giant with one of South Korea’s most dynamic mobile IT companies to tackle a nascent fintech industry that is ripe for disruption. The cooperation could have a big payoff for both parties as Ant Financial has over 450 million users and Kakao’s flagship chat app KakaoTalk is installed on over 99 percent of South Korean smartphones. The companies expect Ant’s fintech innovations to pair well with Kakao Pay, Kakao’s recently spun-off payments platform with some 14 million users, while giving the Chinese fintech giant, the parent of Alipay, an open door to expand its global terrain into Korea.
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TransferWise, an international money transfer service, announced its free Facebook Messenger bot on Monday. The bot integrates the two services so users can arrange foreign money transfers without having to leave Messenger, as well as receive exchange rate alerts for as many currencies as they need. For each transfer, TransferWise will offer a step-by-step guide and help for users who run into trouble.
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Apple Pay is now available from over 40 more banks and credit unions around the United States as part of the latest expansion wave. Apple’s mobile payment service launched just over two years ago with hundreds of additional regional banks and credit unions added every few weeks. As for new businesses, Jennifer Bailey, the head of Apple Pay, shared late last year that Apple’s mobile payment service is coming to GAP stores this year and is currently accepted by 35% of US retailers.
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Airbnb has finalized its deal to buy social payments startup Tilt, TechCrunch has confirmed. We reported on the acquisition talks last month, but now everything has been made official. We are told that investors will be getting back about $12 million in cash, but the deal value is tens of millions of dollars higher if you include employee retention packages, which were paid for in cash and stock. Many of Tilt’s San Francisco employees including CEO James Beshara were asked to stay on board, but most of the remote team was not.
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The rapper and producer will act as a consultant and board adviser to the company as it seeks to make itself stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace. In return, Will.i.am will have the option to acquire up to 3.55m shares in the digital bank at £1.15 each during a three-year period. A source told Sky News, which first reported the story, that shareholders were briefed on the agreement earlier this month, but the identity of The Voice judge has not yet been officially disclosed to existing investors.
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Android users and apps have become a major part of payments and financial services, carrying an increased risk for web crime. It is estimated that there are 107.7 million Android Smartphone users in the U.S. who have downloaded more than 65 million apps from the Google App Store, and each one of them represents a smorgasbord of opportunity for hackers to steal user credentials and other information. This ample target is driving cyber criminals to continuously innovate malware and distribute it in ingenious ways. The latest malware called Android.BankBot has been cooked up using leaked banking malware source code, which was then transformed into an even more dangerous Trojan.
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Consumers across the globe are more concerned with protecting their financial and payments information stored on a computer than they are with protecting this data when stored on a mobile wallet, according to new benchmark data, “Global Consumer Survey: Consumer Trust and Security Perceptions,” from ACI Worldwide. The global fraud study of more than 6,000 consumers across 20 countries revealed that only 43 percent of global consumers trust businesses, including restaurants and merchants, to protect their financial data—while surprisingly, more than 80 percent of global consumers generally believe their mobile wallet data is secure.
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For a roundup of the latest data breach, hacking, malware and other cybercrime trends, it's tough to beat the keynote presentations, sessions and even hallway discussions at the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco. Here are 11 highlights from last week's event.
Related: RSA Conference 2017: Reporter's Visual Notebook
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New York state on Thursday announced final regulations requiring banks and insurers to meet minimum cyber-security standards and report breaches to regulators as part of an effort to combat a surge in cyber crime and limit damages to consumers. The rules, in the works since 2014, followed a series of high-profile data breaches that resulted in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to U.S. companies, including Target Corp, Home Depot Inc and Anthem Inc .
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In January, a month after Yahoo Inc. disclosed a second massive data breach, Verizon Communications Inc.’s top executives huddled at the company’s headquarters and weighed their options. They could walk away from their $4.83B deal to buy Yahoo's internet business; wait to learn more about the damage to Yahoo's brand, or plunge ahead with the purchase and their plans to build a digital media business.
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The most important issue for the United States economy in 2017 and beyond is whether it’s near its speed limit. It has taken eight years of glacial expansion, but the nation is closing in on what economists believe to be its full productive capacity. It’s nearing that level of activity in which nearly everybody who wants a job has one, and factories and offices are cranking at full speed. If the economy grows just 2.5 percent this year, gross domestic product will reach the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the nation’s economic potential by the end of the year.
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May require subscription to read. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Home Depot Inc. on Tuesday showed they can still find ways to entice shoppers to their physical stores, despite a continuing consumer shift toward online buying. Both big box retailers reported strong sales over the holiday season, unlike other brick-and-mortar competitors such as Target Corp. and Macy’s Inc., showing that some retailers are managing to capitalize on a strengthening economy.
Related: 5 Other Big Retailers Besides J.C. Penney Closing a Good Amount of Stores
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The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week but the four-week average of such claims, considered a better gauge, fell to a 43-1/2-year low in a sign of a strengthening labor market. Other data on Thursday showed house prices increasing solidly in December amid strong demand for housing even as mortgage rates rose. The reports highlighted strength in the economy that could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in the near-term.
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First Data and the New York Mets announced an exclusive 10-year strategic marketing partnership for the naming rights to the Mets spring training home in Port St. Lucie. The stadium, formerly called Tradition Field, has been renamed First Data Field. “It is an exciting time for our organization to have a world-wide leader in their field such as First Data to be our new naming rights partner,” said Mets COO Jeff Wilpon. “First Data is going to be a terrific partner of ours for years to come and we are thrilled to have their name on our stadium. All parties look forward to providing a great environment for Mets fans and the community.”
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As adoption of digital payment becomes more prevalent in every corner of the globe, Mastercard continues to work with its partners to create a more open, connected and secure ecosystem. Mastercard today announced the launch of its Digital Vendor Directory, a list of vendors that provides more options for Mastercard customers seeking digital payments services and solutions. The Digital Vendor Directory was developed to help Mastercard customers identify vendors they may engage to more easily and quickly tokenize and digitize card portfolios and deploy their own Masterpass-enabled digital wallets, using the service provider of their choice.
Related: Seven Currencies, One Cash Passport
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TSYS announced that one of the oldest banks in Qatar, International Bank of Qatar (ibq), has signed an agreement to license TSYS’ future-focused PRIMESM payment solutions platform. ibq has selected PRIME to manage all of its Visa and MasterCard credit and debit card issuing and ATM acquiring business as part of a single-platform solution. ibq will benefit from PRIME’s integrated capability for authorisation and switching, fraud monitoring and risk management, disputes and chargeback handling, and ATM management.
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Visa Inc. announced the launch of the Visa Innovation Center London, located at its European headquarters in Paddington Basin. The 1,000+ square meter space, the largest in Visa’s global network of innovation centers, is an immersive environment where Visa can work side-by-side with financial institutions, merchants and other partners to develop the next generation of payment solutions.
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The growth of the ePayments division accelerated sharply at the end of the year, illustrating the relevance of the investments we have made. All regions recorded excellent performances, with the exception of the Brazilian and US markets. Again this year, the Group demonstrated its strong cash generation capability and strengthened its excellent financial position. Our recent commercial successes reflect our excellent innovation capabilities combined with the quality of our products and services. The operational reorganization designed around our clients, announced today, will strengthen the implementation of the Group's omnichannel strategy.
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Green Dot Corporation reported financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2016. For the fourth quarter of 2016, Green Dot reported GAAP and non-GAAP total operating revenues of $162.8 million and $163.2 million, respectively. Green Dot also reported GAAP net loss and GAAP diluted loss per common share of $1.3 million and $0.03, respectively and adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP diluted earnings per common share1 of $21.8 million and $0.19, respectively.
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UnionPay has made new progress in rolling out mobile QuickPass worldwide. Following the issuance of UnionPay HCE mobile QuickPass products in Macau and South Korea, UnionPay International now cooperates with Bank of China (Hong Kong) in offering UnionPay mobile QuickPass products for the first time in Hong Kong. Cardholders are now able to enjoy fast, convenient and secure cross-border mobile payment services at UnionPay QuickPass terminals worldwide with Apple Pay.
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Payment services and gateway provider Shift4 Corporation and Skyware Hospitality Solutions today announced the general availability of their joint EMV-certified solution for hoteliers. With Shift4’s DOLLARS ON THE NET payment gateway and Skyware’s property management system, hotels can process EMV payments to help prevent the fraudulent use of stolen card data in card-present environments while adding the layered security of point-to-point encryption (P2PE) and tokenization. This keeps sensitive cardholder data out of the hotelier’s payment processing environment, greatly reducing their breach profile and PCI scope — and protecting their guests’ payment data from hackers.
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Customers at Gulf Oil fuel stations across select New England and New York markets in the US are to pilot a new mobile payment service that will enable drivers to navigate to the nearest station, pay for fuel at the pump, receive exclusive offers and purchase products inside the convenience store. Gulf Pay is powered by mobile payments at the pump provider P97’s PetroZone mobile commerce platform, and will provide special deals on both fuel and in-store products at participating locations, allowing customers to tailor in-app preferences to fit their specific needs.
Related: Mastercard Joins with Gulf Oil to Drive Faster, More Secure Payments at the Pump through Masterpass
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Paymetric, Inc., a global leader of integrated, secure electronic payment acceptance solutions for the enterprise announced the release of Paymetric BillPay, a new solution that manages electronic invoice presentment and payments from the cloud for businesses. "We created Paymetric BillPay to simplify how organizations deliver and receive payments of B2B invoices," said Asif Ramji, Paymetric President and CEO. "Now our merchants can provide their customers the convenience of receiving and paying invoices online. It speeds processing, and saves organizations staffing time and reduces errors, all positives to their bottom-line."
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Through the partnership with Bluefin, Delego can now provide their clients with Bluefin’s PCI-validated P2PE solution directly through their platform, enhancing payment security and reducing PCI scope with no change to the processing or transaction flow. Bluefin enables PCI-validated P2PE on partner platforms with their Decryptx Decryption as a Service (DaaS) product, which allows gateways, applications, and processors to direct connect to Bluefin for the P2PE service.
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Monzo, one of a number of new digital-only, or so-called “challenger,” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, is closing in on new Series C funding, which could be announced as early as this week. According to multiple sources, U.S.-based Thrive Capital is leading the round. However, I’ve been unable to peg the exact investment amount, with one source telling me it is around £30 million, while another says it is less than that but certainly more than £20 million. I also understand Monzo is planning to launch a second equity crowdfunding campaign shortly, too.
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Klarna, one of Europe's leading payments providers, and Radial, the leader in omnichannel commerce technology and operations, today announced a new partnership to further expand Radial's payment options. The integration of Klarna with Radial's Payment platform enables clients and prospects to offer a financing option at checkout to give customers more choice and could give retailers a 58 percent higher order value. Financing a purchase over time has historically been optimized for brick and mortar stores.
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CareCredit, a leading provider of promotional financing for healthcare, has signed an agreement with Citibank, N.A. to acquire the Citi Health Card portfolio, further expanding its healthcare acceptance network in the United States. The portfolio acquisition includes more than 14,500 providers, further expanding CareCredit’s national network of more than 200,000 healthcare providers and health-focused retail locations. The portfolio includes more than 110,000 current Citi Health Card consumer accounts. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
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SignaPay, a leading merchant services and payment solutions provider, today announced the launch of PayLo, a newly patented technology that allows merchants to reduce or eliminate the costs of credit card fees while remaining compliant with all applicable laws and regulations. PayLo is a cash discount program that applies a small customer service fee to each sale made on a merchants' POS terminal. The service fee is eliminated if the customer pays with cash or gift card. The software automatically determines the service fee and discount amounts, pre-tip, avoiding the pitfalls of manual programs that may overstate gross sales.
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Waiting for a payment to clear can be one of the most tedious tasks in today’s fast-paced society. With ecommerce picking up steam over the last few years, more and more consumers are not only expecting but demanding fast-paying systems in order to expedite the buying process. Here to help remedy this dilemma is global payments and compliance systems company Pelican. In the EU this week, the company launched its real-time payments and compliance solution, PelicanFast. With this new offering, payments can be processed instantaneously between 34 different European countries.
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Star Micronics, leading provider of point of sale and proof of transaction technology, announced that it has joined forces with MoZONE, a leader in proximity marketing and customer engagement, to enable mobile in-venue ordering for thousands of businesses across North America, Europe, and Asian Pacific. This partnership will enable any QSR, Bar, or Café owner to allow customers to order from their smart phones when they enter the venue, approach the drive thru, or sit down at a table, thus eliminating standing in line, or waiting for a server to take their order.
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