Sat.Nov 10, 2018 - Fri.Nov 16, 2018

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Cannabis Cos’ $4.7B In Cash-Based Taxes Overwhelm IRS

PYMNTS

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is paying $1.7 million to a Virginia company to handle “large cash payments for processing cannabis federal taxes.”. According to Quartz , the U.S. government collected approximately $4.7 billion in taxes last year on nearly $13 billion in revenue from legal cannabis companies. Most of these companies were forced to pay their federal taxes in cash because about 70 percent of all legal cannabis businesses are unbanked.

B2B 83
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BlackRock’s Kate Moore: Opportunities in Equities

CFA Institute

Kate Moore, chief equity strategist at BlackRock, thinks that the next six months should be a great opportunity for investment managers who can stay focused over the longer term.

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Trending Sources

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Real-Time Payments Driving Real-Time Liquidity: Deutsche Bank

PYMNTS

Corporate finance executives seem to be readying for real-time payments, preparing to adopt faster payment capabilities and bracing for changes to their cash flow management strategies as a result. A new report from Deutsche Bank said this industry path is guiding banks and corporates to a new destination: real-time treasury. Driven by a range of factors (including changes to intraday reporting requirements, open banking initiatives, longer clearing windows for real-time gross settlement (RTGS)

Banking 78
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Third-Party Data Breaches On The Rise In The U.S.

PYMNTS

Opus, the provider of global compliance and risk management solutions, announced Thursday (Nov. 15) the results of the third annual Ponemon Institute’s “Data Risk in the Third-Party Ecosystem” study, which found that 59 percent of companies surveyed said they have experienced a data breach caused by their vendors or third parties. In a press release announcing the results of the survey of more than 1,000 CISOs and other security and risk professionals across the U.S. and U.K., Opus said th

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From Start to Scale: Driving Growth Through Seamless Payments Implementation

Speaker: Michael Veatch, Senior Director, Implementations & Ella Aguirre, Director of Solution Consulting

Embedding payments can be a transformative step for software companies looking to enhance their platform capabilities, boost customer satisfaction, and drive long-term growth. However, the success of payments hinges on a single thing: implementation. Drawing on real-world insights and experiences, payments implementation experts Michael Veatch and Ella Aguirre will explore actionable strategies that can lead to a transparent, friction-free launch and mitigate potential challenges like technical

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FLEETCOR May Be Nearing Western Union Business Payments Buy

PYMNTS

Western Union and FLEETCOR are nearing an agreement to sell WU’s business payments operations to the fleet payments firm, according to reports in PE Hub on Wednesday (Nov. 15). Citing three unnamed sources, reports said Citi is advising on the deal, which could fetch $600 million for the B2B payments operations. Though unconfirmed, the deal would not come entirely as a surprise.

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Payment Players Launch U.S. Faster Payments Council To Speed Up Payments

PYMNTS

A group of payment players announced Tuesday (Nov. 13) that they created a new organization, dubbed U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC), aimed at working toward a ubiquitous payment system that enables Americans to safely and securely pay anyone, anywhere and at any time with near-immediate funds availability. In a press release, the group said the mission, structure and focus of the U.S.

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Google Cloud Collabs On Enterprise Analytics With ThoughtSpot

PYMNTS

Google Cloud has announced a partnership with artificial intelligence and data analytics firm ThoughtSpot to develop cloud analytics solutions for the enterprise. In a press release issued on Tuesday (Nov. 13), Google Cloud said it has certified ThoughtSpot to operate its in-memory calculation engine, Falcon, on the Google Cloud Platform. The company also revealed additional integrations into the Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine.

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Correspondent Banking Continues Its Decline Despite Regulator Efforts

PYMNTS

Amid stricter checks for money laundering, banks are moving away from the international money transfer practice known as correspondent banking. The shift could possibly cause payments to move underground and particularly impact nations that are dependent on remittances, Reuters reported. Even with efforts to stem the decline in correspondent banking, The Financial Stability Board (FSB) noted on Friday (Nov. 16) that the practice still fell in popularity in 2017.

Banking 76
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How IBM Aims To Make Banks Open To Open Banking

PYMNTS

Banks face a new challenge in the open banking age: How do they best use application program interfaces (APIs) to collaborate with FinTech firms and deliver new services to clients? The API economy offers traditional banks several opportunities for innovation. To capitalize on these opportunities, Tom Eck, chief technology officer at IBM , said financial institutions (FIs) must think outside the banker’s box.

Banking 76
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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Amanda Adams, Fractional CFO, CPA

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Amanda Adams, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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CanIDeal Debuts First Cannabis eCommerce Platform

PYMNTS

CanIDeal has announced that vendors of cannabis-related products can now start listing their merchandise on its eCommerce portal. “While we are only selling THC products in Oregon, any and all non-THC and.3 CBD products can now be listed for sale in every one of the 22 recreational and medical states through our platform. We are thrilled to be able to offer the industry’s first national eCommerce solution for everyone,” Joseph Farruggia, CEO of CanIDeal, said in a press release. “With our

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How Robots Are Shaking Up The Grocery Industry

PYMNTS

It’s a combination of the latest technology and prehistoric human need: the increasing trend of using robots in the grocery industry. It has gained speed in 2018, showing how fulfillment — in many cases, following the lead of Amazon — is relying less on human participation as eCommerce buyers continue to change their shopping habits and expectations.

Retail 75
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Bitcoin Daily: Ripple Tapped By CIMB For Southeast Asia DLT Tech, Bitcoin Cash’s Hard Fork Goes Live

PYMNTS

CIMB , a banking group that operates in countries such as Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, has inked a deal with Ripple in order to bring the company’s blockchain technology to its SpeedSend remittance offering, Cryptovest reported. Through the offering, the bank hopes to take on the inefficient, sluggish and costly process for settlements with distributed ledger technology solutions in the ASEAN region.

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Nordstrom Breach Exposes Data On 76K Employees

PYMNTS

Nordstrom has suffered a data breach that exposed employee names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, checking account and routing numbers, salaries and more. According to The Seattle Times , a company spokesperson confirmed that employees received an email notification and apology from Co-president Blake Nordstrom last week regarding the breach.

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Avoiding Lease Accounting Pitfalls in 2025: Lessons Learned from Spreadsheet Errors

Speaker: Abdi Ali, Sr. Lease Accounting Consultant

Join this insightful webinar with industry expert Abdi Ali, who will discuss the challenges that can arise from managing lease accounting with spreadsheets! He will share real-world examples of errors, compliance issues, and risks that may be present within your spreadsheets. Learn how these tools, while useful, can sometimes lead to inefficiencies that affect your time, resources, and peace of mind.

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First Data’s Frank Bisignano On Giving Back To Veterans Today — And Every Day

PYMNTS

Veterans Day is Nov.11 in the U.S. — a day set aside each year since 1954 to honor all those who have served in the military. There are roughly 26 million veterans in the U.S. today and, each year, about 1 percent of those eligible for service enlist. First Data CEO Frank Bisignano told Karen Webster that the 1 percent is critical. “[Veterans] are the 1 percent that protect all of our liberties and freedom,” Bisignano told Webster.

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Blockchain Believers Remain Bullish On B2B Payments Disruption: PayPie

PYMNTS

As the peaks and valleys of blockchain hype continue to rise and fall, more doubt has surfaced over the future of distributed ledger technology, particularly in the area of B2B payments. Dun & Bradstreet recently released a survey that found only about one-quarter of finance executives believe blockchain will emerge as the dominant B2B payments technology by 2028; instead, professionals believe online payments and eChecks will lead the way.

B2B 74
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Jumio Wages War Against Digital Authentication ‘Maybes’

PYMNTS

What’s worse than a “maybe”? Warm ice cream, perhaps? Flat soda? Pat Boone singing heavy metal? (Yes, he actually released an album of heavy metal covers in 1997, with hard-edged songs from Metallica and Guns N’ Roses rendered in a jazzy style that is not campy but just bad.). Anyway, when it comes to “maybes” — the absence of certainty, the mushy middle that, in business, can mean revenue loss and flat growth — too many of them can provide openings for fraud.

Retail 74
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Amex Rolls Out Digital Service For Remote Workers’ Business Expenses

PYMNTS

American Express announced Thursday (Nov. 15) the launch of American Express Go, a new digital service aimed at helping mid-sized and large companies handle business expenses for temporary workers, recruits and employees without corporate cards. In a press release , American Express said American Express Go features a virtual card that can be used online and over the phone, and also the option for the virtual numbers to be printed on a plastic card for in-person payments.

B2B 74
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Back to Basics with Reconciliations

Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

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Five Innovative Ways Consumers Shop In The Digital Age

PYMNTS

In the connected age, consumers have more ways to interact with retailers than ever before. While brick-and-mortar stores are still popular with shoppers, they are also looking to new channels to buy clothes or their weekly groceries. Simply said, consumers are turning to their mobile devices to make purchases that they might have once made in a brick-and-mortar store.

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Five At Five: Instagram’s New eCommerce Plan

PYMNTS

Welcome to Five at Five, your late look at the day’s payments and commerce news. Today’s coverage includes the latest way Instagram wants to appeal to online shoppers, along with fresh data about how fraudsters might attack on Thanksgiving Day. Instacart raises new capital, Berkshire takes a stake in Chase and bitcoin has a bad day. Instagram Rolls Out Three New Ways to Discover Products to Purchase.

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Where Bank Account Data Alone Falls Short For SMB FinTech

PYMNTS

An application program interface (API) ecosystem is growing to transform the financial services (FinServ) sector, and small business (SMB) banking won’t be left out of the shift. APIs offer third-party FinTech firms new opportunities to make use of valuable data stored within traditional bank accounts. In some instances, these systems deploy this data to create a solution that banks haven’t developed themselves, often due to restricted investments in small business product developmen

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TRENDING: IBM’s Plan To Help Banks Embrace Open Banking

PYMNTS

Open banking initiatives are changing the way banks operate and engage with third parties and partners. However, those are not the only changes the movement is causing — it’s also having an unexpected side effect of pushing banks to reimagine their traditional roles as financial institutions (FIs). Now, several major financial giants are encouraging industry-wide collaborations with the launch of B2B market platforms.

Banking 73
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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O’Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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Online Lender SoFi Sees $12M Loss In Q3

PYMNTS

Online lender Social Finance (SoFi) continues to struggle, recording an adjusted loss of around $12 million during the third quarter before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The FinTech company has now recorded losses for the second consecutive quarter. In August, it posted a second quarter loss of about $200 million. According to The Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ), the earnings losses follow an adjusted profit of $56 million in Q3 of 2017.

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Diebold Nixdorf On Why Banks Could Be Digital Identity’s Future

PYMNTS

Digital identity in the last few years has gotten a major boost — as of 2018, 60 nations worldwide have embraced some version of a digital identity scheme. But digital identity, and leveraging it properly, as Diebold Nixdorf ’s Scott Anderson noted in a recent conversation with Karen Webster of PYMNTS and Diebold Nixdorf’s John Spenler , is rather easily misunderstood.

Banking 73
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Community Banks Debut FinTech Alliance

PYMNTS

Collaboration amid competition has been a hallmark of the financial services space, as traditional financial institutions (FIs) join forces with FinTech startups. To that end, news came earlier this week in the United States that a dozen community and regional banks have formed a group aimed at exploring the opportunities amid FinTech offerings. The group, to be known as Alloy Labs Alliance, according to a press release , is being managed by FinTech Forge.

Banking 73
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After Hurricane Michael, Credit Unions Step Up To Boost Rebuilding Efforts

PYMNTS

In early October, Hurricane Michael ravaged the Southeastern United States and parts of Central America, and these areas are still recovering from the damage. In addition to the human toll, the damage includes destroyed homes, vehicles, roads and infrastructures. By some estimates , the powerful storm — which has been linked to 36 deaths in the U.S. — caused approximately $4.5 billion in damages to residential and commercial properties.

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Solve Your Firm's Automation Complexities Once and For All

Speaker: Mark Stovel

When it comes to automating, many firms focus on finding the latest tech, believing that efficiency is something achieved through new tools. Yet true efficiency is achieved by delivering real value to clients, not merely by upgraded systems. Without a clear approach, no level of automation can overcome the complexities of serving every client’s needs.