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NewsBriefs

cryptocurrency schemes. closed June 7, 2018, that its prepaid product, paysafecard, will be accepted in the Google
Ripple, a global financial Play Store. Paysafe plans to roll out the card in Europe following a pilot test in Poland,
and blockchain settle- which is home to more than 1 million paysafecard cardholders, company representatives
ment network headquar- stated.
tered in Amsterdam, with
offices in San Francisco, By removing the need for online shoppers to share banking or credit card credentials, Pay-
New York, London, Syd- safe expects paysafecard to appeal to underbanked, video gaming and privacy-conscious
ney, India, Singapore and consumers while also complying with European Union privacy regulations. Udo Müller,
Luxembourg, stated it CEO at paysafecard, said these expectations are consistent with company research on con-
will donate $50 million to sumer trends.
participating universities.
"The risk of fraud and sharing personal data online still concern many consumers," he said.
Eric van Miltenburg, Se- "Lost in Transaction: Payment Trends 2018, our proprietary research launched earlier this
nior Vice President of week, shows that half of respondents worry about fraudulent purchases and 48 percent
Business Operations at worry about the safety of their personal data. This is why offering paysafecard as a way
Ripple, said Ripple looks to pay in the Google Play Store has come at the right time to enable consumers and both
forward to facilitating companies to benefit."
faculty and student-led
projects that explore digi- U.S. company makes open banking history
tal payments use cases. On June 1, Token.io Ltd. became the first licensed Payment Initiation Service Provider to
"Academia has tradition- conduct an end-to-end payment through a public bank application programming interface
ally been a critical driver (API). The San Francisco-based open-banking platform provider received confirmation by
of technical innovation," the UK Open Banking Implementation Entity that it was indeed first to execute this type
he said. "The University of transaction.
Blockchain Research Ini-
tiative is an acknowledg- The initial API payment was executed via Token's network using Santander's API payment
ment of the vital impor- initiative endpoints, the company noted. "Billions of payments will follow," said Marten
tance of the unique role Nelson, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Token. "Ours was the first."
universities will play in
advancing our under- Less than a month earlier, Token, which also operates offices in London and Berlin, was
standing and applica- granted authority by the Financial Conduct Authority to deliver payment initiation and
tion of cryptography and account information services under terms of the European Commission's Payment Services
blockchain technology. It Directive 2 designed to increase pan-European competition and participation from non-
also speaks to the reality banks and guarantee faster payments.
that university graduates
will fuel a continually
evolving and maturing
financial marketplace and
workforce."

As emerging currency
schemes gain worldwide
popularity, their benefits
to civilians and business
owners have yet to be ful-
ly clarified, van Milten-
burg noted. He acknowl-
edged Ripple will support
university projects that
focus on useful applica-
tions without dictating
research parameters.
Paysafe's well-timed
open banking card
Paysafe Group, a global
provider of end-to-end
solutions with U.S. head-
quarters in Houston, dis-
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