December, 2016

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Viber UK Users Can Send Money Thanks To Western Union

PYMNTS

Western Union, the global payment services company, announced Wednesday (Dec. 7) it is enhancing its relationship with Viber, the mobile messaging app that counts 745 million unique users around the globe. In a press release , Western Union said it is enhancing its existing relationship with Viber by enabling Viber users in the U.K. to send money domestically and internationally to more than 200 countries and territories via the Viber app.

Leverage 105
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Mastercard And Visa Tag-Team Tokens

PYMNTS

Tokenization as a global standard for securing transactions in a digital world gets turbocharged today. In a mutual commitment to accelerating the adoption of an open digital wallet, global card networks Mastercard and Visa announce their agreement to allow each network to request tokenized credentials from the other when consumers are transacting across any digital medium — in app, online and in store.

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How Citi FinTech Is Living Up To Its Name

PYMNTS

It’s not easy being big. Or being big and regulated. Among other things, it makes running a footrace with FinTech startups — tough. Big and regulated banks — especially these days — are not set up to sprint. Decades of legacy infrastructure and a web of regulations make it tough to adopt a “move fast and break things” mantra — even if the regulators would allow it.

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Walmart Launches Blockchain Technology For Pork And Produce

PYMNTS

Blockchain has officially entered the grocery aisles. Walmart has announced that it is now testing new blockchain technology to track and trace produce in U.S. stores and pork in China. PYMNTS covered the testing and lead-up to the kickoff back in November. Now, the technology and use of it are even closer. It’s a pilot program, where sliced apples and cut broccoli will be used to test the blockchain database technology for four months starting in the first quarter of 2017.

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The Human Side of Finance: The Intersectionality of People, Culture, Adaptability, and Resilience

Speaker: Melissa Hurrington

Finance isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about the people behind them. In a world of constant disruption, resilient finance teams aren’t just operationally efficient. They are adaptable, engaged, and deeply connected to a strong organizational culture. Success lies at the intersection of people, culture, adaptability, and resilience. Finance leaders who master this balance will build teams that thrive through uncertainty and drive long-term business impact.

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Visa Acquires CardinalCommerce

PYMNTS

Visa announced today that it will acquire eCommerce payment authentication leader CardinalCommerce. The move is expected to enable Visa’s global clients and partners to accelerate, scale and secure digital commerce as payments expands to include billions upon billions of connected endpoints. Mark Nelsen, senior vice president of risk and authentication products at Visa, said that the “strategic acquisition combines Visa’s industry expertise and Cardinal’s critical role in payment authentication

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Amex Acquires InAuth

PYMNTS

The American Express that exists today would look pretty foreign to its first employees of 166 years ago — since, to state the obvious, a lot has changed over that period of time. Long before American Express was a credit card issuer and a closed loop payments network, it was in the business of moving mail (and other things) quickly from one coast to the other.

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The Coming Millennial FinTech Crisis

PYMNTS

It’s a fact. While they enjoy many FinTech innovations, most millennials don’t have a snowball’s chance of earning more than their parents — ever. How big the income gap between those 70 million people and their parents depends on a few things, including how well-heeled their parents are. Not surprisingly, hardest hit are the kids born to middle and lower middle-income families — so, roughly 70 percent of the U.S. population.

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Nearly Two-Thirds Of Americans Already Own An IoT Device

PYMNTS

The Internet of Things may be a burgeoning industry, but according to a new survey by IAB, nearly two-thirds of American consumers, or 62 percent, already own at least one IoT device. What’s more, 65 percent of those surveyed who own IoT devices said they are willing to receive ads on their IoT screens. In a press release highlighting the survey results, IAB said 62 percent of survey respondents said they already see ads on IoT -connected gadgets.

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The Millennials Are Coming (To Get A Mortgage)

PYMNTS

Millennials just aren’t buying homes — they are the first generation of Americans since World War II who will meaningfully move away from that vision of the American Dream. Millennial homeownership rates — for those 75.4 million or so young adults between the ages of 19 and 35 — was far below historical averages and about a fifth of home ownership rate in the same age group at the turn of the 21st century.

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Maximizing Profit and Productivity: The New Era of AI-Powered Accounting

Speaker: Yohan Lobo

In the accounting world, staying ahead means embracing the tools that allow you to work smarter, not harder. Outdated processes and disconnected systems can hold your organization back, but the right technologies can help you streamline operations, boost productivity, and improve client delivery. Dive into the strategies and innovations transforming accounting practices.

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IBM Creates Blockchain Ecosystem

PYMNTS

IBM is getting into the blockchain game, announcing Friday (Dec. 9) it launched a blockchain ecosystem aimed at accelerating the creation of blockchain networks. In a press release , IBM touted blockchain, saying it has the potential to transform the way all sorts of industries conduct business transactions. In order for it to take off, IBM contends there needs to be a complete ecosystem of industrial players all working together.

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Why Visa Bought CardinalCommerce

PYMNTS

To the average consumer, payments looks pretty simple and straightforward — especially when paying online. Enter a card number, hit buy and a millisecond later, the countdown to getting the goods begins. For those that use a mobile wallet, it’s even simpler. And while building all that simplicity for consumers is a good thing, actually making it simple — and secure — is basically what makes the digital commerce world go round.

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Bitcoin Tracker: Coinsource

PYMNTS

The price of bitcoin has continued its December climb this week. Bitcoin is at its highest value since early Feb. 2014. After a drop into the mid-760s on Sunday (Dec. 11), bitcoin rose to a weekly peak of $788.49 on Tuesday afternoon. The remainder of the week was spent lolling about in the mid to upper 770s. The current value of bitcoin at the time of writing was $777.14. —.

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Keeping Pace With Supply Chain Evolution

PYMNTS

Just as businesses need to keep pace with the change of technology, the technology providers that help businesses remain successful need to stay ahead of the curve themselves. Corporations are scaling globally, integrating complex supply chains, working with small suppliers, ensuring international compliance and gaining access to more data than ever before.

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Smarter Card Solutions: Meeting the Challenges of Mid-Market Travel & Expense

Our 2025 Center Travel Survey is clear: as corporate travel increases, so does corporate credit cards distribution, and a rise in off-platform travel booking. This 61% rise causes various challenges: compliance, spend control, reporting problems, and a lack of visibility across organizations. To evolve with the ever-changing needs of travelers, decision-makers need a better solution.

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Circle Says Bye-Bye To Bitcoin

PYMNTS

There are pivots and then there are wholesale about-faces. Circle’s choice to halt bitcoin trading in favor of doubling down on more traditional mobile pay certainly counts as a bit more of the latter than the former. Circle launched three years ago mostly as a consumer finance firm built on a bitcoin backbone. Customers were able and encouraged to buy and sell bitcoin on the platform — and as a blockchain-based firm, Circle was able to snap up around $70M in investor funds.

Finance 81
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DHgate.com Promises 6-Second B2B Transactions

PYMNTS

Chinese B2B eCommerce platform DHgate.com is upgrading its payments infrastructure to promote faster payments for businesses transacting on the site. Reports Friday (Dec. 2) said DHgate.com revealed plans to upgrade its platform payment infrastructure to ensure that every transaction will take six seconds or less. According to reports, through optimizing existing infrastructure and acquiring additional servers across the globe, the site was able to accelerate page loading times and support faste

B2B 80
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Will Amazon Eat Grocery Stores For Lunch?

PYMNTS

Retailers, already sweating bullets over the “ Amazon Effect ” on their business, now have one more reason to keep sweating. Amazon Go, Amazon’s new grocery store format in Seattle, opened last week. Right now, its only customers are Amazon employees, who are putting it through its paces, but that will change in early 2017, a spokesperson said. Few details have emerged as to how Amazon Go powers the experience that shoppers will find once they get inside the store, but the combination of the Ama

Sales 80
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When IoT And The Automotive Industry Collide

PYMNTS

The automotive industry just had a head-on collision — with technology. That’s what Marques McCammon , GM for connected vehicle solutions at Wind River , thinks anyway. He explained that the automotive industry is the one place where the concepts of IoT can be made very real to the mass market — where they will be able to see it, understand it and really feel its impact.

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Bringing AI to Finance: How to Leverage Technology for Efficiency and Control

Finance teams are balancing more than ever, but manual processes shouldn’t slow you down. In this ebook from BILL, discover how AI is transforming finance—automating AP, expense tracking, and document management to reduce errors, increase efficiency, and improve financial control. Learn how real companies are using AI-powered automation to streamline workflows, detect anomalies, and gain deeper insights.

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Russia Will Send JPMorgan Hacker Home to US, Sources Say

PYMNTS

American fugitive Joshua Aaron, who is a suspect in the massive JPMorgan hack that took place back in 2014, arrived back in the U.S. from Russia this week. Aaron’s return to the U.S. and subsequent arrest comes after seven months of negotiations between U.S. authorities and a migrant detention center near Moscow, people close to the matter told Bloomberg.

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DA’s Office In Pennsylvania Pays Ransom In Bitcoin

PYMNTS

At a time when the IRS is trying to find out the identities behind bitcoin users, the Pennsylvania Allegheny County District Attorney’s office revealed it had to use bitcoin to pay a ransom to get its data back. According to a report by Forbes , the ransom was only $1,400, but the fact that a government agency paid a ransom and used bitcoin is something not seen before.

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Scotland Sheds Industrial Rep For FinTech Focus

PYMNTS

Scotland’s economy has excelled in industrial industries such as shipbuilding, steel and petroleum, but the country is turning its attention to developing a rising digital tech scene. In this week’s installment of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , one of the country’s thriving tech clusters, Glasgow, takes center stage. Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about Glasgow and its tech scene: Glasgow it the largest city in Scotland and the third largest in the U.K., with an e

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It’s B2B FinTech’s Time To Shine For Investors

PYMNTS

Venture capital has hit a plateau, according to some analysts. “After $100M+ checks flowed freely to VC-backed companies through much of 2015, the mega-round trend has settled into a lower range through 2016,” concluded KPMG and CB Insights in their Q3 2016 venture capital report. Data suggests the trend is global: North America VC investments for the quarter were fairly flat compared to Q2, and while Europe saw an increase in the number of deals for VC funding, there was a decline i

B2B 79
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Say ‘Goodbye’ to Clunky Spreadsheets and Say ‘Hello’ to Month-End Automation

Technology is rapidly changing the way accountants perform and manage month-end activities. Spreadsheets, emails, and shared drives no longer need to slow you down. In under four weeks, your team can start reaping the benefits of month-end close automation by vastly reducing spreadsheets, cut down on reconciliation work, speed up the month-end close, and better manage your remote team.

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Millennials Reluctant To Give Personal Data, Businesses Depend On It

PYMNTS

Between the Instagram selfies, Twitter hashtags and Facebook posts, millennials seem to overshare. Their life is an open book on social media, and even the tiniest of details are never too much to provide. But when it comes time to hand over information to authenticate themselves to conduct a financial transaction, that door slams shut. “The more information that’s asked of them, the less likely it is that [millennials] will finish the application,” said Johnny Ayers, cofounder of Socure.

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Chatbot Tracker: Entertaining Bots And Their Potential To Kill Apps

PYMNTS

Chatbots’ capabilities seem to be extending and expanding weekly. They can help consumers bank easier, ship and track gifts quicker, plan a vacation with less stress and even talk to those who have passed away. Now, chatbots can even help plan a party. Beverage company Pernod Ricard launched a chatbot bartender that helps party hosts create cocktails for their event.

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Will Mobile Wallets Ever Be Wallet Of Choice?

PYMNTS

Vantiv and iModerate know that the word wallet has come to mean much more than just the accessory thrown in a purse or back pocket. Today, the word can also describe a mobile app that stores digital versions of a person’s payment cards, loyalty cards, gift cards and even coupons — enabling payment to take place with just a tap or scan. While mobile wallets can be a quick and convenient option to help consumers expedite checkout, keep their information secure, and streamline retailer discounts an

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Retailing And eCommerce, Back To The Future (In 2017)

PYMNTS

[link]. Baseball is always a fecund place to find analogies about life. It’s also a great place to find analogies about life that apply to payments. Here’s one: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” That one’s been attributed, of course, to Yogi Berra, as well as Hall of Famer Casey Stengel. And yet, we do all get into the predictions game, in every walk of life, across industries and personal endeavors, serving as roadmaps for the upcoming 12 months and beyond.

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Outsourcing Vs. In-House: The Ultimate Battle For Better Collections

Speaker: Susan Richards

Your past-due accounts are growing, cash flow is tightening, and the pressure is on. The big question: Do you handle the collections internally or outsource to experts? Both strategies come with advantages and risks - but which one delivers the best impact for your business? In this session we’ll dive deep into the in-house vs. outsourcing debate, examining cost-effectiveness, efficiency, compliance risks, and overall recovery success rates.