September, 2019

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ID2020 Alliance Unveils Digital ID Program

PYMNTS

At its annual summit in New York , the ID2020 Alliance announced the roll out of a digital identity program with the Government of Bangladesh ; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and new partners in academia, government and humanitarian relief. “Digital ID is being defined and implemented today, and we recognize the importance of swift action to close the identity gap,” said Dakota Gruener, executive director of ID2020, in an announcement.

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The Bezzle and the Central Banks

CFA Institute

In today's bull market, the bezzle, or "inventory of undiscovered embezzlements," isn't stocked with Ponzi schemes and the like. Rather it is built on the notion that risky assets have become practically risk-free.

Banking 59
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Trending Sources

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Hey Siri, What’s My Forecasted EBITDA Look Like?

Jedox Finance

Even though we have so much advanced technology surrounding us, we still cannot just ask, “ Hey Siri, what’s my forecasted EBITDA look like ?” There are many reasons why such technology isn’t available yet—insufficient data, unstructured data and some human knowledge that is not yet transferable to machine. However, there are many available technology tools that can simplify planning tasks and make planning and budgeting easier and far more accurate for finance professionals.

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Building The Tire Shop Of The Future With On-Demand Service

PYMNTS

When Zohr Co-Founder and CEO Komal Choong and Co-founder and COO Anoop Choong were in college, they would flip cars and car parts on the side. While they were buying and selling a lot of those vehicles, Komal told PYMNTS in an interview that “we realized how painful the experience was for the consumer going into a traditional tire shop or repair facility.

Retail 100
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Automation, Evolved: Your New Playbook For Smarter Knowledge Work

Speaker: Frank Taliano

Document-heavy workflows slow down productivity, bury institutional knowledge, and drain resources. But with the right AI implementation, these inefficiencies become opportunities for transformation. So how do you identify where to start and how to succeed? Learn how to develop a clear, practical roadmap for leveraging AI to streamline processes, automate knowledge work, and unlock real operational gains.

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Walmart To Expand Delivery Unlimited Program

PYMNTS

With an expansion of its Grocery Delivery membership option for customers, Walmart plans to grow the reach of Delivery Unlimited to 1,400 stores later this autumn. The offering allows shoppers to pay a monthly or yearly fee to get unlimited Walmart Grocery Delivery orders. Shoppers, however, can still pay a per-delivery fee without a membership, the company said in an announcement.

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FTC Officials Look Into Amazon’s Use Of Market Power

PYMNTS

To find out if Amazon is utilizing its market power to hurt competition, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) team of investigators has started to interview small businesses that sell items on Amazon. Multiple attorneys, as well as one economist at a minimum, have been conducting interviews that tend to last roughly an hour and a half that cover many topics, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (Sept. 11), citing unnamed merchants.

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How Video Games Are Helping Retailers Grow And Innovate

PYMNTS

Video games are helping to drive retail innovation and growth, and that includes the hot area of subscription commerce. Video games have changed a lot since the early days of home gaming in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The graphics improved, the games got more expensive and elaborate, and a whole lot more people from every walk of life are playing them.

Retail 99
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Retailers Are Getting Smarter About Artificial Intelligence

PYMNTS

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are starting to play a bigger role in retail, foreshadowing what’s to come in the new decade of the 2020s. Walmart , for instance, hopes to reduce checkout theft by turning to cameras powered by AI, with deployments underway in some 1,000 stores. “The retailer began investing in the surveillance program, dubbed Missed Scan Detection, several years ago in an effort to combat shrinkage – loss due to several causes including theft, scanning err

Retail 99
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PepsiCo Launches First Cash-Back Loyalty Program

PYMNTS

PepsiCo announced it has launched its first-ever cash-back loyalty program, PepCoin by PepsiCo. Through the program, customers will earn cash rewards when they purchase a single-serve PepsiCo beverage and Frito-Lay snack together (each must be specially marked). They only need to scan the codes on the bag and under the bottle cap with their smartphone.

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Data Talks, CFOs Listen: Why Analytics Is The Key To Better Spend Management

Speaker: Claire Grosjean

Finance teams are drowning in data—but is it actually helping them spend smarter? Without the right approach, excess spending, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities continue to drain profitability. While analytics offers powerful insights, financial intelligence requires more than just numbers—it takes the right blend of automation, strategy, and human expertise.

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Walmart To Pilot Third-Party Fulfillment Strategy

PYMNTS

Walmart has revealed it is testing out a fee-based service called “Fulfilled by Walmart.”. The company’s U.S. eCommerce chief, Marc Lore, announced the news at an industry conference this week, explaining the service aims to help Walmart’s online unit generate more revenue, as well as enable it to move more items from third-party merchants. Lore did not provide any further details, according to Bloomberg.

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Serving Mobile P2P Payments To The Gen X Crowd

PYMNTS

Financial providers worldwide are working to give small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) quick access to their funds. Digital banks , for one, are teaming up with technology providers to accelerate settlement times for payments collected at the point-of-sale (POS). Legacy banks are similarly at work, with one major FI seeking to beat out FinTech competition by offering same-day access to credit card deposits.

Banking 98
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Serving Up A Competitive Offering In The Crowded Meal Kit Market

PYMNTS

For a consumer who wants to cook at home, but doesn’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time preparing for that process, there are no shortage of options on the market. The meal kit space has been crowded with an unending hit parade of “dinner delivered in a box” options for consumers served up by a host of startups, established brands and even celebrities looking to cash in on the trend.

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Amazon Expected To Debut New Alexa Hardware At Annual Event

PYMNTS

Amazon will host an event on Sept. 25 in Seattle to introduce new products and services. According to CNBC , the eCommerce giant is expected to debut new hardware for its Echo family, as well as launch new products. At last year’s event, Amazon announced 15 Alexa-enabled products, including a microwave, new Amazon Echo products, a wall clock with Alexa built-in and more.

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What Your Financial Statements Are Telling You—And How to Listen!

Speaker: David Worrell, CFO, Author & Speaker

Your financial statements hold powerful insights—but are you truly paying attention? Many finance professionals focus on the income statement while overlooking key signals hidden in the balance sheet and cash flow statement. Understanding these numbers can unlock smarter decision-making, uncover risks, and drive long-term success. Join David Worrell, accomplished CFO, finance expert, and author, for an engaging, nontraditional take on reading financial statements.

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Target Circle Loyalty Program To Go Nationwide In October

PYMNTS

Starting on Oct. 6, Target reportedly plans to bring its revamped loyalty offering nationwide. The Target Circle program offers birthday rewards as well as other personalized coupons, CNBC reported. The company noted that over two million people enrolled in the program over an 18-month period and have made over 14 million transactions. (The offering does not require a person to have a Target credit card or pay a membership fee.

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China Central Bank Readying Crypto Launch?

PYMNTS

In China, the central bank will debut a state-backed cryptocurrency that initially will be issued to seven institutions in that country, Forbes reported this week. The news comes from Paul Schulte, who was head of financial strategy for China Construction Bank. He told the financial publication the firms include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Bank of China, Alibaba, Tencent, Union Pay and others.

Banking 98
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Retail Pulse: Target Prepares For Holiday Orders; McDonald’s To Acquire Apprente

PYMNTS

Brick-and-mortar retailers are doubling down on digital as they look to staff their stores for the busy holiday shopping season. Target , for instance, plans to bring on over 130,000 seasonal team members, with “a twofold increase in the number of roles focused on fulfilling digital orders from its stores.”. The company notes that roughly 125,000 team members will fill different types of roles at over 1,800 brick-and-mortar locations.

Retail 97
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Amazon, Home Depot Eye Fulfillment Innovations As Same-Day Delivery Race Heats Up

PYMNTS

Sometimes innovation in the commerce and payments space is a matter of a new technology or a new process. As recent news from the fulfillment world demonstrates, sometimes the Big New Thing is merely an extra floor or two in a warehouse. That’s the story involving Amazon (and, it seems, The Home Depot as well). The eCommerce operator reportedly is leasing some 500,000 square feet of space in a three-story warehouse in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Forecasting Failures Are Costly: Heres How To Fix Them

Speaker: Dave Sackett

Traditional budgeting and forecasting methods can no longer keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving business environment. Static budgets, rigid annual forecasts, and outdated financial models limit an organization’s ability to adapt to market shifts and economic uncertainty. To stay ahead, finance leaders must leverage a future-forward approach—one that leverages real-time data, predictive analytics, and continuous planning to drive smarter financial decisions.

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Passage Of SAFE Banking Act Gives Cannabis Businesses Access To Banking

PYMNTS

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1595, known as the Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, on Wednesday (Sept. 25). The bill was sponsored by Congressmen Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Denny Heck of Washington, Steve Stivers of Ohio and Warren Davidson of Ohio, all members of the House Financial Services Committee. The legislation aims to ensure that state-authorized and regulated cannabis businesses are not forced to operate with cash only.

Banking 94
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Amazon Trials Hand Recognition Payment Method At Whole Foods

PYMNTS

Amazon is testing a new payment system that uses handprints for checkout instead of a card or an app, The New York Post reported on Tuesday (Sept. 3). Codenamed “Orville,” the technology will scan human hands to ring up purchases. Sources told the NYP that the e-commerce giant is using its New York employees as test subjects by installing the system on a handful of vending machines selling chips, sodas and phone chargers in its offices.

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Why Invisible Will Make 2020’s Payments Innovation Roar

PYMNTS

The famous 17 th -century political satirist and author, Jonathan Swift , wrote in 1745 that “vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” Two hundred and seventy-four years later, those words are the perfect framework for understanding what will define the next decade of innovation in payments and any ecosystem that touches it. Which, increasingly, is just about every ecosystem.

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What The Trendsetters Say About How We Will Pay Next Decade

PYMNTS

Sheep are not natural-born leaders. If they were, they wouldn’t need border collies or sheepherders to make sure that they didn’t follow wolves blindly into harm’s way and that they ended up where they needed to be at the end of the day. Recognizing this, in the late 13 th century, sheepherders decided to make their lives (and that of their border collies) a little easier.

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Are Robots Replacing You? Keeping Humans in the Loop in Automated Environments

Speaker: Erroll Amacker

As businesses increasingly adopt automation, finance leaders must navigate the delicate balance between technology and human expertise. This webinar explores the critical role of human oversight in accounts payable (AP) automation and how a people-centric approach can drive better financial performance. Join us for an insightful discussion on how integrating human expertise into automated workflows enhances decision-making, reduces fraud risks, strengthens vendor relationships, and accelerates R

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The Rapid Rise Of Social Credit Scores 

PYMNTS

The most common association with the term “social credit score” is with China. Since roughly 2014, the Chinese government has been working on the system, which is designed to be a “method to perfect the socialist market economy system, accelerating and innovating social governance,” according to a State Council notice from 2014. “China’s social credit system is an ambitious, technology-driven initiative through which the state seeks to create a central repository of data on natural

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Why Being ‘Invisible’ Isn’t Enough For Payments In The 2020s

PYMNTS

If for nothing else, Uber and Lyft will be remembered for one big thing: making payments all but invisible via a seamless transaction process that was pretty much revolutionary. In a short amount of time, that ideal has become the general gold standard for digital and mobile payments and commerce, a guiding light for all types of companies in all kinds of sectors.

B2B 87
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Burger King Now Accepts Bitcoin

PYMNTS

You want fries with that crypto? Might have to wait a bit, especially on the international stage. For some, bitcoin and cryptos — beyond a means of speculation — are a solution in search of a problem. However, among the more enthusiastic refrains from supporters: Cryptos will become ubiquitous as they scale into everyday retail environments. It’s been a slow start.

Sales 85
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Visa Powers Revolut’s Global Expansion Into 24 New Markets

PYMNTS

“There is nothing new under the sun.”. Human beings have been saying the above, or some variation on it, for approximately three thousand years since it was first written down in the Book of Ecclesiastes in 935 BCE. It is safe to say that the majority of times it has been uttered, the person doing so was underselling the future a bit. We imagine if presented with an iPhone, penicillin, an automobile or just a ballpoint pen, even the original scribe would have been forced to concede that exciting

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Book of Secrets on the Month-End Close

Based off SkyStem's popular e-Book, the book of secrets to the month-end close will be revealed in this one-hour webinar. Learn leading practices when it comes to building a strong and sustainable month-end close that has room to grow and evolve. Learn about the power of precise estimates, why reconciliations are critical to closing the books, how and when to automate, and how the chart of accounts play into your close process.