Paytm Digitizes Small Towns, Encouraging Innovation in the U.K.: 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.

Fintech Investment

Fintech unicorns. Following on the recent IPO news from Adyen, this author takes a look at the growing number of fintech unicorns and expanding venture capital investment in the payments / fintech space. From PE Hub.

Cashless Society / Digital Payments

Digitizing small town India. Paytm reported that it is working with more than 3 million merchant partners – many of which are in small towns across India. The company credits digital transactions for a 20% increase in transactions for these businesses. From Paytm (blog post).

Cambodia’s piece of the Pi. The government of Cambodia has signed an agreement with payments company Pi Pay to help implement cashless payments there. The agreement focuses on transportation services, from driver’s licenses to taxi and ferry services. From Southeast Asia Globe.

Encouraging payments innovation in the U.K. In response to a request from the British government for comments on the role of cash and digital payments, the Emerging Payments Association, a trade group for payments professionals, published recommendations on how the government could encourage innovation and reduce reliance on cash in the U.K. From Global Banking & Finance Review.

Research

Asia’s mobile apps. Mercator Advisory Group has published a new research report that takes an in-depth look at Alipay, Paytm and WeChat Pay, the dominant mobile payments apps in Asia. From Mercator Advisory Group (blog post).

Trends in digital commerce. Juniper Research has released a new report on the latest trends and developments in digital commerce, including a market forecast and breakdowns that include QR codes. From Juniper Research (press release).