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IndustryUpdate

ANNOUNCEMENTS third-party institutions outside mainland China to access
UnionPay mobile payment solutions, including UnionPay
mobile QuickPass and UnionPay QR code payment, via
Global Finance honors Finastra UMPS' open application programming interface. UnionPay
Finastra was named "best payment solutions provider" by CEO Cai Jianbo said, "The launch of UMPS will contrib-
Global Finance, as part of the magazine's Best Treasury & ute to the global rollout of the UnionPay mobile payment
Cash Management Banks and Providers for 2018, published products, offering UnionPay cardholders smooth mobile
in March. The publication credited Finastra for its best-of- payment experiences both in and outside mainland China."
breed payments and financial messaging solutions which Verifone debuts Carbon Mobile 5
allow financial institutions and their business customers to
manage cash, process payments, exchange information and At Money20/20 Asia, Verifone heralded a commerce solu-
transfer funds cost-effectively, securely and reliably. tion designed to bring mobility, payment and commerce
together in a single portable device. The palm-sized Car-
i2c enters Omaha bon Mobile 5 enables checkout and Android apps for POS,
Silicon Valley-based i2c Inc., a global provider of smarter loyalty, inventory management and other functions; offers
payments and integrated commerce solutions, revealed an optional integrated printer; and supports in-aisle sales,
plans to open a new operations center in Omaha, Neb., and clienteling, endless aisle solutions and more. The Carbon
create 300 new positions. The Omaha center will be used family also includes Verifone Connect, which enables pay-
to expand the company's account management, operations ment acceptance, and allows businesses to increase con-
and client services divisions. The Omaha center is i2c's sec- sumer engagement and manage their business.
ond major operations center in North America, following
the opening of a center in Montréal, Canada in 2016. RESEARCH

Kount boosts online fraud protection
Cybercriminals launder up to $200 billion annually
Kount Inc. recently added Boost Safety Rating, a super-
vised machine learning feature that passes data through A Bromium Inc. independent, academic study revealed the
hundreds of models to generate a single numerical transac- macro economics of cybercrime and how cybercriminals
tion safety rating. Following a successful client beta test, launder and cash out profits of criminal endeavors. The
Boost Safety Rating is now part of Kount's Boost Technol- findings are part of a larger nine-month study sponsored
ogy. "In three short months, customers' use of the Boost by Bromium titled Into the Web of Profit. According to the re-
Safety Rating feature has dramatically reduced false posi- port, cybercriminal proceeds comprise an estimated 8 to 10
tives and customer service calls, as well as lowered manual percent of total illegal profits laundered globally, amount-
reviews by as much as 20 percent," Kount stated. ing to $80 billion to $200 billion annually; virtual curren-
cies have become the primary tool used by cybercriminals
Merchant Link celebrates 25 years for money laundering.

Payment gateway and data security solutions provider Cryptocurrency payments lack support
Merchant Link celebrated its 25th anniversary on March 11.
Merchant Link noted that during that time, it has grown Results of an Intrapay consumer ecommerce survey sug-
from a small technical support center in Bethesda, Md., to gest lackluster consumer demand for cryptocurrency as a
an international provider of payment security solutions payment method, now and in the future. According to the
serving more than 500,000 customers processing over 6 bil- survey, consumers are more than seven times as likely to
lion transactions annually. make online purchases using prepaid cards than crypto-
currencies today, and more than twice as likely to use pre-
NFC Forum's Hunter recognized paid cards in the future. Less than 2 percent of consumers
surveyed have used cryptocurrencies; only 6.5 percent plan
The NFC Forum Executive Director Paula Hunter was to use it to make future purchases online.
named a finalist in The Women in IT Awards' Business
Leader of the Year Award category. Hunter was nominated Mercator predicts small business credit card growth
for leading the NFC Forum to success in a variety of key
sectors within the IT industry including the growing use Mercator Advisory Group's recent research report U.S.
of NFC technology in public transportation, Internet of Small Business Credit Card Forecast, 2017–2022: Healthy Mar-
Things, retail and payment and automotive markets, the ket, Room for Improvement projects small business cards will
forum noted. approach $700 billion by 2022 and suggests an additional
50 percent of transactions now posted on consumer cards
UnionPay mobile payment platform goes global could instead run on small business payment cards if small
business owners realize the dedicated cards have features
UnionPay International launched the UnionPay Inter- suitable for running a small business.
national Mobile Payment Service (UMPS) to enable com-
mercial banks, retailers, mobile phone manufacturers and
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