Sat.May 19, 2018 - Fri.May 25, 2018

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Privacy Critic Files GDPR Complaints Against Facebook And Google

PYMNTS

As Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect, Facebook privacy critic Max Schrems has filed four complaints over consent required to use online services. The complaints were filed against Facebook — along with its Instagram and WhatsApp services — and against Google ’s Android, TechCrunch reported. “It’s simple: Anything strictly necessary for a service does not need consent boxes anymore,” Schrems wrote in a statement.

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How Much Can Technology Improve Healthcare Payments?

PYMNTS

Among the latest hopes for healthcare payments is blockchain. Touted by observers and industry players as one of the top trends that could impact medical billing and data management for 2018, the technology is increasingly being viewed as part of the path to better efficiency in payments. For instance, ConnectingCare , a company that helps far-flung practitioners view patient data across different points of care, wants to use blockchain for cost forecasting and to enable direct pay options for h

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Hy-Vee’s First Wahlburgers Restaurant Opens In Minnesota

PYMNTS

Hy-Vee amps up its partnership with the Wahlberg brothers by opening its first Wahlburgers restaurant at the Mall of America in Minnesota. The opening comes as Hy-Vee plans to open another 25 restaurants over the next few years, The Star Tribune reported. Hy-Vee Chief Executive Randy Edeker was not initially interested in the partnership. “But I promised him I’d consider it,” Edeker told the newspaper.

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European Banks Want More Regulation Of Large Tech Companies

PYMNTS

Some of the biggest banks in Europe are urging regulators to increase oversight of large technology companies that are moving into the financial services market. The Financial Times , citing some of the banks, reported that the new open banking rules that require European Union lenders to provide account access of customers to third parties has resulted in concerns on the part of bankers that Chinese and U.S. technology companies will choose to go only after the best parts of the financial servi

Banking 55
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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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The Future Of Augmented Reality Is Becoming Clearer

PYMNTS

Recent moves from PayPal and Target have brought fresh attention to the use of augmented reality (AR) to boost commerce and payments. The technology remains in its infant stage — with seemingly as many ideas and demonstrations as real-world applications — but the paths to an augmented reality future are becoming clearer. The revival this spring of PayPal’s patent for payment-enabled augmented reality glasses has some analysts wondering how close the technology is moving toward the mainstream.

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Coupa: How CFOs Become Chief Business Drivers

PYMNTS

CFO. Chief financial officer , of course. But might we tweak the title a bit? Maybe to “chief fundamentals officer?” The fundamentals of business is what we’re talking about here: Stretching across everything from external forces, such as competition, to internal workings spanning expense management to communications to defining and spearheading strategy that can change with haste.

CFO 52
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TRENDING: Inside GDPR’s Enforcement Strategies

PYMNTS

Cyberattacks on American financial institutions are at an all-time high, with more and more cybercriminals eyeing consumers’ financial data and other sensitive information. A February 2018 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that 75 percent of American financial institutions incurred losses due to fraud last year. And with that, governments and security solution providers are stepping into the fray with the aim of combatting fraudsters.

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Blockchain: Payments Execs Unpack The Hope From The Hype

PYMNTS

Remember when blockchain was the new technology buzzword on the … block? Still buzzy, if not so new in the nomenclature. Now blockchain is on everyone’s lips, and has been for a while. Where once the concept of the digital ledger was linked to bitcoin , now blockchain stands on its own, as a conduit to any number of transactions across cryptocurrencies and other vessels of exchange, including data.

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Chase Launches Ink Business Unlimited Credit Card

PYMNTS

Chase announced news on Tuesday (May 22) that it is launching Ink Business Unlimited, a new credit card geared toward small business owners that gives them unlimited 1.5 percent cash back on purchases. In a press release, Chase said Chase Ink Business Unlimited rewards business owners on every purchase without requiring them to make purchases in special categories.

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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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Estonia Sees $13B In Money Laundering Over Four Years

PYMNTS

After reports of money laundering caused lenders in Estonia and Latvia to close, police said on Friday (May 25) that more than $13 billion (or about €11 billion) was laundered through banks in Estonia between 2012 and 2016. Much of the money was reportedly laundered through bank accounts belonging to non-residents, Reuters reported. “In 2012, more than €7.3 billion in securities from Russia were processed through the Estonian financial system.

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Vocalink: How To Stop Fraud In The Era Of Real-Time Payments

PYMNTS

As the speed of payments increases around the world, the potential scope of fraud shifts to targets beyond cards. Criminals are taking advantage of the global spread of real-time digital transactions to con chief financial officers, invoice managers and the like, hoping to steal massive sums before anyone knows they’ve been ripped off. That is among the themes of a recent discussion that Karen Webster had with two fraud experts from Vocalink , the Mastercard -owned payment company that powers re

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WePay: Contextual Is The Future Of Commerce

PYMNTS

In 10 years, no one will talk about “contextual commerce” — it’ll just be commerce. That’s what Rich Aberman, co-founder of WePay , predicts. Native commerce is where Aberman believes all platforms are headed — and that’s not just true for software developers like Apple, Google and Microsoft, but also for social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

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Bringing A New Social Context To eCommerce

PYMNTS

Though the idea of contextual commerce is widely loved, delivering on it is a significant challenge. As it turns out, finding the right context — a moment when a customer is perfectly primed to buy a good or service, if only someone would give them an easy way to do it — is not as easy as simply declaring something a good context for commerce. For example, the rocky launch of the eCommerce chatbot over the last year has proven this problem.

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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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Independent Restaurants Increase Spending With Suppliers

PYMNTS

The number of independent restaurants continues to decline in the United States, but they still make up more than half of the country’s eateries, and account for 15 percent of total restaurant operator spend. That’s according to research released on Monday (March 21) by The NPD Group. The research firm said that “while the number of independent restaurant units in the U.S. dropped by 3 percent, 346,105 independent restaurants remained opened, which represents over half of the 647,288 commercial

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The Automotive Aftermarket Eyes Its Digital Future

PYMNTS

The experiment did not work out for AutoZone. The retailer of aftermarket automotive parts had tried offering “aggressive promotional discounts” for items ordered online and then shipped to consumers’ homes, according to CEO William Rhodes — a nod to how eCommerce is changing customer expectations. The discount program, while only a small part of the chain’s overall revenue mix, had a “negative impact on our sales, which also negatively impacted our overall same-store sales,” he said on Tuesday

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Fundbox Links With Eventbrite For Events Financing

PYMNTS

Small business invoice financing platform Fundbox is targeting the events industry through a new partnership with Eventbrite. A press release late last week said Fundbox is integrating its solution into the Eventbrite platform to link event creators with access to credit. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics cited in Fundbox’s announcement, the event industry is slated to grow 44 percent between 2010 and 2020.

Finance 46
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Sensory CEO On How Voice Recognition Is Growing Up

PYMNTS

The ideal goes something like this: Consumers at any location — a friend’s house, a car — could speak into a voice assistant or smart speaker and be instantly recognized by the device no matter who owns it. That consumer could make secure transactions or add items to a daily calendar or perform any of the other tasks possible in a world where voice recognition has become ubiquitous.

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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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Sodyo’s Vision For The Next-Gen QR Code

PYMNTS

What if QR Codes could transition consumers seamlessly between the online and offline worlds, blurring the lines between physical and digital retail, and ingraining shopping as part of the everyday experience? They can’t, but the next generation of scannable codes aims to do exactly that, leveraging a color matrix that can be scanned from afar and renders well on TV screens.

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How Data And AI Are Changing The Real Estate Game

PYMNTS

Are the days of the real estate agent numbered? Probably not — no matter what, someone has to put out cookies and snacks for potential home buyers — but artificial intelligence is taking more command in the industry. The latest evidence comes from SetSchedule , a real estate data analytics and marketing firm. It recently announced its launch of a service called SetValue, which the company describes as a “tool that is the first of its kind to combine data analytics and artificial intelligence and

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Adobe To Aquire Magento Commerce For $1.68B

PYMNTS

Adobe has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Magento Commerce for $1.68 billion, subject to adjustments. The addition of the Magento Commerce Cloud will enable commerce to seamlessly integrate into the Adobe Experience Cloud, and delivers one platform that serves both B2B and B2C customers around the world, Adobe said in an announcement.

B2C 45
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Business Owners Turn To Personal Credit Cards

PYMNTS

The wallets of small business (SMB) owners are bulging with plastic, thanks in large part to the difficulty of securing funding, which leads to those merchants using their personal credit cards to meet expenses. That’s according to Nav , which helps business owners find financing and access credit. To arrive at its findings, Nav “analyzed anonymized personal credit card usage data from 143,004 of its small business customers and 128,281 of its consumer customers.

Finance 45
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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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More Payment Platforms Mean More Headaches For B2B Sellers

PYMNTS

Paper checks may be the No.1 way to pay suppliers in the U.S., but only by a slight majority. ACH, wire, virtual and physical cards, and other rails all come into the mix, particularly as each vie for a chance to take B2B payment market share away from paper. For vendors, this means managing acceptance of multiple payment rails, often based on what their corporate customers prefer.

B2B 45
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Comcast Faces Fallout From Website Bug That Leaked Consumer Data

PYMNTS

It looks like a flaw in Comcast’s website used for the activation of Xfinity routers can be exploited to harvest sensitive consumer information. According to reports, the purpose of the site is to make it easy for customers to set up their home internet without having to wade through a customer service call. It’s a useful service except for the fact that it can apparently be tricked into displaying the home address of wherever the router happens to be.

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The Gig Economy’s $1.2T Digital Payments Potential

PYMNTS

A smart entrepreneur dropped out of college, identified an unmet market need and created an entirely new market segment. He did it by establishing a platform that matched an underutilized source of supply with a growing demand for services. One of his platform’s competitive advantages was the centralized payments platform he created to remove the friction involved in paying suppliers.

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To Earn Customer Trust, Rethink Digital Identity

PYMNTS

Welcome to the new world of trust. Identity is the new currency, and the costs of mishandling it – or making it easy to steal – can end up higher than the mere theft of funds. That’s one of the insights offered by Tony Ball, senior vice president and general manager of identity and access management for Entrust Datacard , during an interview with Karen Webster for the PYMNTS “ Economy of Trust ” podcast series.

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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.