Sat.Jul 11, 2020 - Fri.Jul 17, 2020

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Why SMBs Need To Focus On Product Innovation And Adopt A Digital Business Model

PYMNTS

The acceleration of [digital sales] growth can be explained almost entirely by an influx of first-time buyers.”. When consumers fled to online shopping options in Q2, many businesses weren’t set up for digital-first commerce, but quickly figured it out. There’s a cautious optimism now as SMBs, in particular, discover that going digital itself has gotten easier.

eCommerce 135
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Keys to bridging the talent gap in FP&A

Future CFO

We are already in the midst of a talent war. Spurred by changing market dynamics, adoption of automation, low-cost outsourcing options, and the rapid creation of new job scopes, finding the right talent is becoming harder. Those that fit the bill often come at a premium. Nowhere is this more evident than in the role of financial planning and analysis (FP&A), often considered the “eyes and ears” of a company.

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Trending Sources

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Advice for Startups from your Financial Partner

BlueLight

Advice for Startups from your Financial Partner?—?myStartUpCFO I recently spoke with finance leaders from a couple dozen startups. These businesses ranged from seed stage companies where the CEO was the finance leader to growth stage companies with an in-house CFO. In these conversations, I observed each finance leader had a different perspective and approach with their financial accounting partner.

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Stocks Turned Upside Down? The COVID-19 Beta Effect

CFA Institute

Since equity markets peaked in February 2020, the underlying foundation of systematic risk has flipped on its head.

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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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Machine Learning Stabilizes Business Continuity During COVID

PYMNTS

“Organizations may have had to engage in relaxation strategies, which could inversely impact their fraud appetite, as they had to let more transactions through without reviewing them. The risk is real.”. Spikes in cybercrime are making headlines daily, and people are getting burned. Preparedness often decides the outcome. “In our experience, clients running machine learning models haven’t had to change thresholds,” said Nuno Sebastião , co-founder and CEO at Feedzai.

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How Retailers Are Cashing In On A US Coin Shortage

PYMNTS

As the United States experiences a coin shortage due to the pandemic, some brick-and-mortar retailers are forcing consumers to tell cashiers to “keep the change.”. Kroger is the largest chain so far to do so, temporarily refusing to give coins out as change. Customers can either round up their bills to the nearest dollar and give the excess to charity or get their change stored on loyalty cards. “The Federal Reserve is experiencing a significant coin shortage that is impacting our store op

Retail 116
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Visa: Contactless Is The Cornerstone For A Reinvented Public Transportation Experience

PYMNTS

Transit system operators were already thinking about making at least a partial switch to contactless payments long before a global pandemic disrupted any and every element of how people moved between Point A and Point B. Mary Kay Bowman , Visa ’s head of seller solutions, told Karen Webster in a recent conversation that some operators had contactless payments already partially available in segments of the public transportation system, while others had it earmarked for a project several years in

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SBA: EIDL Emergency Grant Program Runs Out Of Money

PYMNTS

A $20 billion federal initiative to provide emergency funding to small businesses is out of cash. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced in a press release the end of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Advance program. The EIDL was crafted to provide economic relief from $1,000 to $10,000 to businesses and nonprofits that experienced a temporary loss of revenue during the pandemic.

Nonprofit 111
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Fostering Payments Trust In A Global Freelance Economy

PYMNTS

Before the pandemic hit, the global freelancing economy was expected to experience significant proliferation. Today, while shutdowns have led many businesses to temporarily halt non-essential spending, many in the market actually expect the expansion of the freelancing community to accelerate as a result of market volatility. One factor behind that thinking is certainly the sudden jolt of job losses, guiding many professionals once reliant on hourly or salaried employment to step into the world

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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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How To Drive Success In A Digital 3.0 World

PYMNTS

In 1946, the then-61 members of the World Health Organization (WHO) saw the need for a consistent yet comprehensive definition of “health.” They felt strongly that any definition had to acknowledge that a person’s good health was more than not being sick or disabled, but instead should reflect “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.

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How One Startup Is Reinventing Travel Insurance For The Post-Pandemic World

PYMNTS

Admittedly, it might seem like a strange time to be launching an innovative travel insurance product given how much the tourism industry has contracted in the wake of the global pandemic. But CEO Ugo Weyl of travel insurance platform Koala told Karen Webster recently that now is the perfect time to disrupt what is regarded by consumers as a hideously friction-filled experience.

Startups 101
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American Express Launches Automated AP Solution To Help Digitize B2B Payments

PYMNTS

American Express has launched a new automated accounts payable solution, American Express One AP, to help businesses digitize B2B payment processing, according to a press release. The service, built with the technology American Express acquired with its purchase of acompay in 2019, will aim to help businesses process supplier payments in a more efficient, modern digital way, working seamlessly with the systems they already have in place, according to the release.

B2B 101
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Why The Best Fraud Defenses Need Artificial And Human Intelligence

PYMNTS

There’s an old saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Shedding some light on just what the bad guys want — and why and how they are angling to get it — means that the financial services ecosystem can effectively head them off at the pass. Mari Anne Bayliss , senior director of solution management at CyberSource , told Karen Webster that simply relying on machine learning as a weapon against fraud is not enough — not in an age where managing fraud risk during the great digital shift

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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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Goldman’s Apple Card: What Will Q2 Hold?

PYMNTS

Apple Card — the iPhone-based credit product launched last summer by Goldman Sachs , Apple and Mastercard — is expected to be a hot topic on Goldman’s earnings call Wednesday (July 15). A look at recent activity around the card shows a good deal of innovation and a fair amount of concern over rejection rates for both the card and its mobile wallet cousin, Apple Pay.

Sales 97
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Helping Big Banks Overcome Their Cloud Paralysis

PYMNTS

Migrating to the cloud is an imperative part of traditional financial institutions’ (FIs’) ability to compete with digital-native FinTechs. The technology lays the foundation for modern, agile products and services, with enough flexibility to evolve as market conditions and customer demands change. Yet the transformation is a lofty — and certainly intimidating — initiative for banks.

Banking 96
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The Shift Toward A Modern Disbursements Experience

PYMNTS

“As consumer and business digital adoption has catapulted over the last 12 weeks, when it comes to payments, there are certain status quos we will no longer accept.”. Modernizing payments is work that never ends, but the end game is a world of connected commerce and consumer preference. “For disbursements specifically, the opportunity is also for a more modern solution,” said Drew Edwards , CEO at Ingo Money.

Banking 96
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Visa On The Role of ‘Super Apps’ In Driving Emerging Market Growth

PYMNTS

“Careem” is an Arabic word meaning, in part, “noble, admirable and praiseworthy.”. In the case of Dubai-based ride-hailing and delivery platform Careem and its efforts to modernize payments in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, add “timely” to the list. The platform’s deal with Visa to bring enhanced payments together with financial management tools in-app for consumers and Careem Captains — the gig workers who comprise its indie workforce — is another win, after being acquired by Uber

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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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The Payments Industry Was Ready

PYMNTS

“Sustained business success is dependent on business readiness to adapt to the changes in the market conditions, including the evolving needs of customers.”. Most people are utterly stunned and surprised by sudden disruptions like COVID-19. Others know that pandemics and crises come and go. The most resilient companies are always future-proofing. “If nothing else, this crisis reinforces that the future is and always will be uncertain,” said Amir Wain , founder and CEO of i2c.

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How Subscriptions Bridge The Online/Offline Learning Divide

PYMNTS

The pandemic has presented financial challenges for consumers and businesses alike. It has revealed at the same time the value of the subscription model in a whole new light by allowing consumers to get steady supplies of their favorite goods and services direct to their homes without braving store aisles only to find limited inventory. Certain segments of the market have surged, with millions of new subscribers for movie and TV streaming platforms, meal kits and other product boxes.

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Digital Transformation Hits Overdrive

PYMNTS

“Just as changing consumer behaviors are accelerating the adoption of digital commerce, they are also creating a greater demand for digital payout methods.”. Money movement has gone further, faster in the past four months than in as many years. That’s progress — and not a moment too soon. “The digital disbursement of funds enables businesses to move money with the same flexibility, convenience and positive experiences created by digital commerce — while enabling contactless interactions and inst

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Are Voice Ecosystems The Next Antitrust Battleground For Big Tech?

PYMNTS

In less than a decade, voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like Alexa and Siri have gone from something seen in science-fiction films to mainstream consumer touchpoints for larger digital ecosystems. In fact, the latest edition of PYMNTS’ and Visa’s How We Will Pay survey found that more than three in 10 consumers own voice assistants, compared to just 1.4 out of 10 in 2017.

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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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Revolut Adds Crypto To US Offerings With Paxos Deal

PYMNTS

European FinTech Revolut, which recently debuted in the U.S. with an app and debit card, is expanding its range of services into the realm of cryptocurrency trading with a big assist from Paxos. In a Wednesday (July 15) press release, Paxos Trust Co. said Revolut is its first customer for its new product, the Paxos Crypto Brokerage. According to New York-based Paxos, the API-based solution is designed to enable companies to “integrate cryptocurrency buying, selling, holding and sending capabilit

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Wirecard Exec Admits Role In German Company’s Collapse, Attorney Says

PYMNTS

One of the unnamed jailed executives in the Wirecard scandal has reportedly admitted guilt to the multi-billion-dollar fraud and money laundering case, according to Reuters. The executive was the CEO of CardSystems Middle East, the largest unit under Wirecard’s command. Nicolas Fruehsorger, a defense lawyer for the executive, said his client “has voluntarily given himself up for the proceedings and — in contrast to others — takes individual responsibility,” according to Reuters.

SAP 91
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Visa Expands Contactless Public Transportation Payments Due To Pandemic

PYMNTS

Visa , in response to the rising demand for safer ways to travel, has expanded its partnership with Cubic Transportation Systems to offer contactless payments for public transportation services in over 500 cities, according to a press release. Visa and Cubic have already launched contactless systems in cities around the world, including London, Miami, New York, Sydney and Vancouver.

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VillageMD CEO: How The Walgreen’s Partnership Can Fix What’s Broken In Primary Healthcare

PYMNTS

If the U.S. is serious about fixing the cost of healthcare , then it’s time to focus on one of the root causes of its spiraling costs: the roughly 20 percent of U.S. patients who have chronic conditions drive about 85 percent of America’s total annual medical spend. So says Tim Barry , co-founder and CEO of VillageMD , which through its subsidiary, Village Medical, provides value-based primary care services by 2,800 physicians in 9 states including New Hampshire, Texas, Florida and Illinois.

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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.