Square Uplevels EMV; SBI Drives Cashless: News Roundup
PaymentFacilitator’s News Roundup is a curated mix of the past week’s news and articles from around the web, including company announcements, global payments news, and other coverage and analysis of topics relevant to payment facilitators.
Cashless Momentum
SBI accelerates the drive towards cashless. The State Bank of India has launched a Multi Option Payment Acceptance Device (MOPAD) that enables one POS interface for everything from UPI, Bharat and QR to e-wallet and payments. The bank’s chairman acknowledged the role of leading PF Paytm, which has enabled many small merchants in India to accept digital payments. From Your Story.
Cashless commerce continues to gain traction in the global payments ecosystem. Asia-Pacific has a faster adoption rate than anywhere in the world; in Australia alone, contactless payments account for two-thirds of credit and debit card payments. The cashless modality of choice in Asia varies by market, despite digital wallets dominating the headlines. From The Business Times.
The Digital Download
Flipkart invests in PhonePe to the tune of $64 million. Flipkart acquired PhonePe in 2016 and is investing in the digital payments company to provide a level playing field in its competition against digital payments giant Paytm. From Deccan Herald.
Expansion and Innovation
Square Uplevels EMV. The global brand said it has made U.S. EMV transactions even faster for business owners and buyers processing contactless on Square Reader and chip on Square Register. In addition, Square has eliminated the need for users of its app to wait for customer signature – another tipping point for faster payment processing. From Square.
PayNow goes corporate. Known predominately for peer-to-peer transactions, PayNow is opening the payments field to Singapore retail establishments via QR code and unique entity number. Using either one of these digital identifiers, PayNow Corporate enables retail establishments to pay and receive money from local customers in their local currency. From TODAYonline.
Industry News:
Shift4 Payments and Venuetize Partner to Add Secure Payment Functionality to Mobile Event Platform
Hotel-Focused Real Estate Investment Firm Walker Reynolds Selects RealPage® Software for Performance Analysis and Decision Support
Mercator Advisory Group Launches Merchant Services Practice