Category: Archive | Page 35

Square Disrupts in D.C.

The Washington, D.C., Department of For-Hire Vehicles has tapped leading payment facilitator Square to power an initiative that will move that city’s taxi drivers to a digital platform.

“The for-hire transportation industry has been through disruption with the advent of the e-hailing apps and changing consumer preferences. One of the objectives about what we want to do is to allow the traditional taxi to compete more fairly.”

First Data Launches New E-Commerce Solutions for PFs

Payment processor First Data has launched a new e-commerce program for payment facilitators that it’s calling Global PFAC.

As part of First Data’s e-commerce suite of products, Global PFAC offers a single integration interface that allows merchants to settle and fund transactions in more than 40 countries and 17 currencies.

New Threats From States and Old Ones From the CFPB: PF Regulatory Responsibilities Aren’t Getting Any Lighter

As third parties, payment facilitators have a complicated regulatory framework to wade through. And it’s unlikely to get untangled any time soon, especially as state regulators look to clamp down on a payments industry they don’t fully understand, according to panelists at Payment Facilitator Day during the ETA’s TRANSACT 17 conference.

Prepaid, money transmission, data and cyber security, these are perennial worries, one panelist said, but one particular trend in state regulation has her very nervous.

Investors Lured by Hockey Stick Growth of Payment Facilitators

While most people outside the industry don’t know what a payment facilitator is by name, the process of simplifying merchant onboarding to allow merchants to quickly start accepting payments is a business model seeing increased interest from the venture capital community.

According to panelists at Payment Facilitator Day during the ETA’s TRANSACT 17 conference, the payment facilitator industry is still in the very early days, but there’s substantial interest both by software companies looking to follow the PF model and investors looking to funnel money into the model.

Talk to Your Developers! Square Insists They’re Key

Developers, according to Square Developer Lead Carl Perry, are the most important community for many payment facilitators.

It’s not something payment facilitators hear very much, but developers are a core part of the business, and payment facilitators need to make the building of payment solutions streamlined for this group.

And this is especially important as payments and all the features around payments become more complex. With increasing consumer payment options, such as NFC, EMV and bitcoin, and multichannel strategies for acceptance, developers have a challenge to build solutions that keep up with buyers’ quickly changing demands of payments whenever, wherever.

News Roundup: Visa, Mastercard Standardize QR Code

In a roundup of this week’s news, major card brands are continuing their expansion of digital payments acceptance, targeting cash usage at small and micro businesses and at festivals. And eMarketer ventures a prediction about the cross-border e-commerce shopping habits of German consumers.

New Payment Facilitator Platform Enables PFs to Get Up and Running Faster

One barrier to entry for companies considering the payment facilitator model has been creating their own framework for enabling merchant acceptance from scratch.

In response, consultants Todd Ablowitz and Deana Rich have teamed with technology services company iClassPro to introduce Infinicept, a company that offers what they say is the first platform built specifically for payment facilitators.

The platform, known as Payment Facilitator in a Box, offers infrastructure that PFs need to get merchants up and running on their systems, including a new, proprietary underwriting tool.

UN Report: Alipay and WeChat Pay Enable Phenomenal Digital Payments Growth in China

A recent study by the UN-based Better Than Cash Alliance supports what payment facilitators have long known – that enabling access to electronic payments is increasing financial inclusion and creating opportunity.

The report, titled “Social Networks, e-Commerce Platforms and the Growth of Digital Payment Ecosystems in China — What It Means for Other Countries,” looks at the growth and the economic impact in China of leading payment facilitator Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Podcast: PF Day Preview with Adyen’s Mike McGirr

This week, we talk with Mike McGirr, senior vice president, compliance and risk, for payments platform provider Adyen.

In a wide-ranging conversation, McGirr talks about Adyen’s role in the payments ecosystem. He also talks about his own roles as chair of ETA’s new Payment Facilitator Committee and moderator of an acquirer panel at the upcoming Payment Facilitator Day, part of ETA’s TRANSACT conference. And he previews some of what PFs can expect from both.

Vantiv Enters B2B With Paymetric Acquisition

Payment technology provider Vantiv is planning to acquire Paymetric, a B2B electronic payments provider, the company said this week.

The acquisition expands Vantiv’s presence into the B2B payment space, the company said. Paymetric integrates payments capabilities with enterprise systems such as SAP, Oracle and Salesforce. It uses tokenization technology to store customer information securely.