Stripe Targets Entrepreneurs; Amazon India Smiles on Offline Merchants: 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.
Amazon’s Reason to Smile
Amazon India brings the competition to Paytm. And all via QR code. Currently in pilot phase, Amazon Smile code will bring the quick-response payment trend (made popular and proven successful by Paytm) to their offline Indian merchants. With Smile, users can use the Amazon app to make payments in-store or get the products delivered at home. From Factor Daily.
The Power of Two
MobiKwik continues to expand its fintech platform by entering into the wealth management arena. The company has acquired online wealth management platform Clearfunds with the intent to further solidify its footprint in the digital financial services space. Users will now be able to start saving in mutual funds directly from their MobiKwik app. From The Hindu Business Line.
Stripe targets entrepreneurs through partnership with The World Bank. Together, the two brands will compile a database filled with self-reported experience from global entrepreneurs called World Bank Digital Entrepreneurship Index. The goal is to provide data to policymakers in an effort to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem. From Stripe.
Taking a Stand
Some small merchants keep to the sidelines during India’s season sales. Big Billion Days and Great Indian Festival (Amazon India and Flipkart’s holiday promotional sales extravaganza) are kicking off but some of the smaller merchants have decided to sit this one out. According to one of this year’s non-participants, this is due largely to a “lack of viability on the marketplace to give such deep discounting.” From The Economic Times.
Industry News
Paya Launches Paya Connect Platform to Enable Custom Payment and Commerce Experiences
Worldpay Extends Real-time Payouts to Over 50 Countries
Sarah Friar to Step Down as Square CFO
AvidXchange and ClickPay Launch Partnership to Help Accelerate Payments in the Real Estate Market
RealPage To Acquire Rentlytics
Boost Launches Industry-First Payment Platform to Feature Dynamic Discounting for Commercial Cards
U.S. Recurring Payments Market Forecast, 2017–2021: Set It and Forget It
Mastercard Teams up with Zoho to Launch a Bundled Solution for SMEs
NMI Unveils Unified Payments Engine to Enable New Era of Commerce
Unlocking Global Growth Potential: New Data from PPRO Group Reveals Massive Opportunity for U.S. e-commerce Offering Local Payment Methods Across the World