ANNOUNCEMENTSIn a May 17, 2017, statement issued to the New York Department of Financial Services regarding its lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Conference of State Bank Supervisors President and CEO John Ryan, said, "CSBS strongly supports the lawsuit filed today by the New York Department of Financial Services against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC does not have the authority to issue federal charters to non-banks, and its unlawful attempt to do so will harm markets, innovation and consumers."
EC3, the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol, stated it is working closely with cybercrime units and key industry partners in multiple countries affected by a large-scale ransomware attack in May known as WannaCry that encrypted computer data and demanded ransom from its victims to unlock. The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce, a division of EC3 made up of a group of specialist international cyber investigators, will play a key role in supporting the investigation.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the OCC terminated the Consent Order entered into with two D+H Corp. subsidiaries as a condition of its acquisition of Fundtech in 2015. The order was issued in 2013, in connection with certain Fundtech businesses. Since the acquisition, D+H has made investments and improved risk practices in those businesses to meet requirements of the Consent Order.
First Data Corp. received recognition from the Human Rights Campaign, DiversityInc. and GLSEN, each hailing the company for fostering workplace equality and opportunity for employees of all backgrounds. "First Data cultivates a workplace culture that values all individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other characteristic," said Cindy Armine-Klein, Executive Vice President, Chief Control Officer, and founder of UNITY, First Data's LGBT employee resource group.
MoneyOnMobile Inc. entered an agreement with YES! Bank to increase its secured credit facility to $3.75 million in order to facilitate growth in domestic remittance processing volume in India. "This expanded line of credit will allow our merchants to take on even more domestic remittance transactions," said Harold Montgomery, MoneyOnMobile Chairman and CEO.
G2 Web Services' Payment Laundering Detection won the 2017 Paybefore Pay Awards award in the Fraud Fighter category. The technology uses propriety web surveillance and G2's Merchant Map, which has tracked 60 million merchants and mapped trillions of data connections. Vantiv Inc.'s triPOS Mobile SDK earned the M-POS Solution award for an iOS app that integrates EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) and point-of-interaction devices within its Express platform.
Payment Alliance International moved into its new headquarters in Louisville, Ky. The latest move follows expansion moves for three of its operating centers. The newly built 30,000 square foot headquarters features a highly secure data center, technologically advanced corporate training area, employee collaboration rooms and the latest in multi-point video conferencing.
TransMerit Merchant Services was named the Best Credit Card Payments Solution by the 2017 FinTech Breakthrough Awards. Over 3,000 global nominations were submitted this year. "To be recognized for this effort, amidst a field of global firms, excites us about the future of the industry," said Keith Olmo, co-founder and Managing Director at TransMerit.
Wells Fargo & Co. selected ProxToMe and Uniken to join the Wells Fargo Startup Accelerator program. Each participant in the non-exclusive, six-month program is eligible to receive up to $500,000, mentoring, and guidance in refining their potential breakthrough technologies for the financial services industry. Wells Fargo business and technology leaders plan to work closely with the companies to test concepts and help them accelerate time to market for their services.
Worldpay Vice Chairman and Executive Director Ron Kalifa ranked third on the 2017 EMpower Ethnic Minority Leaders List, presented by the Financial Times. The list showcases the top 100 U.S. and U.K. minority executive professionals. Kalifa was appointed to his current role in 2013, having previously served as Worldpay CEO for over 10 years and in executive roles with RBS and NatWest. Mergers and acquisitions, and strategy development are among his core strengths.
RESEARCHJuniper Research Ltd. predicted chatbots will redefine the customer service industry, with healthcare and banking sectors benefiting most. The study, Chatbots: Retail, eCommerce, Banking & Healthcare 2017-2022, claimed chatbots will result in cost savings of over $8 billion per annum by 2022, up from $20 million in 2017.
In another report titled Contactless Payments: NFC Handsets, Wearables & Payment Cards 2017-2021, Juniper predicted contactless card payments will dominate transaction values and top $2 trillion globally by 2021. Research author Nitin Bhas noted that from a payments and convenience perspective, it will be difficult for mobile wallet providers to gain existing market share from contactless cards unless providers are able to deliver innovative services.
Symantec Corp. released its 2017 Internet Security Threat Report, which highlighted several prominent threat trends, including breaches through non-secured access points, as well as financial system heists, a resurgence of malicious email, increased ransomware attacks, and emerging threats within the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud-based environments.
The Smart Payment Association revealed top industry findings from its 2016 annual review of the smart payments market. Data collected from SPA members revealed that over 2 billion payment chip cards were shipped globally in 2016, up 4 percent over 2015 shipments. Of that quantity, over 50 percent of the shipments in most regions were contactless cards, SPA noted.
PARTNERSHIPSAvalara Inc. teamed with Heartland Commerce in the hospitality sector, where Heartland claims to have a 19 percent share in the U.S. restaurant POS market, including 83,000 independent restaurants and 11 of the top 25 quick-serve brands. Heartland clients will now have access to Avalara's Compliance Cloud platform and its tax content database containing complex tax rates, rules, and regulations for thousands of U.S. and global tax jurisdictions.
Online bookkeeping service provider Bench partnered with online commerce platform, Stripe, to provide back-office solutions for tracking revenue and payments. Small businesses can now instantly transfer Stripe merchant data directly into their Bench accounts to automate and unify reporting, processes that are normally time-intensive, the companies stated.
BridgePay Network Solutions LLC entered a technology partnership with MagTek Inc. to integrate MagTek's eDynamo mobile reader into BridgePay's MobileLINK app and PayGuardian middleware. MobileLINK customers now have a fully-brandable mobile payment solution to support mobile EMV chip and magstripe payments. BridgePay also partnered with Bluefin Payment Systems LLC to offer Bluefin's PCI-validated solution to BridgePay clients.
Cayan LLC formed a strategic alliance with hospitality POS provider Squirrel Systems, whereby Squirrel clients can leverage Cayan's Genius payment platform to process EMV and magstripe credit and debit cards; gift and loyalty cards; and mobile payments, including Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay to deliver enhanced customer payment experiences.
"Integrating with Cayan not only gives us the ability to provide additional EMV solutions in the U.S. for our customers, it also allows our merchants to create high-value customer experiences like pay-at-the table," said Joe Cortese, Vice President of Product Development at Squirrel. "As EMV becomes more entrenched in the hospitality industry, providing guests with the most security and assurance is paramount, and Cayan's solution is allowing us to do that."
Ingenico Group and Electronic Payment Exchange collaborated in upgrading POS terminals across Fantastic Sams Cut & Color franchises. Powered by EPXPay and Ingenico's iCT 250 smart terminals, Fantastic Sams is now equipped with an EMV-certified terminal application, encryption, tokenization and end-to-end processing services for card-present transactions.
Kount Inc. integrated BehavioSec Inc.'s behavioral biometric technology into its fraud management platform. BehavioSec's technology verifies user identities by monitoring how users interact with their devices. "Together, we can better equip customers ranging from acquiring banks, to payment service providers, to online merchants to authenticate transactions and identify fraud before it happens," said Rich Stuppy, Chief Operations Officer at Kount.
Mastercard joined forces with payments industry leaders to enhance and expedite the consumer checkout experience by leveraging its M/Chip Fast technology. Verifone plans to incorporate M/Chip Fast into its U.S. product deployments. Global Payments Inc. plans to make the faster EMV technology available to key merchants in the fast food, grocery, transit and retail sectors.
MiCamp Solutions and CapX Payments, a subsidiary of Prepaid Ventures, launched a new cash discount program called WAVit designed to help merchants save on credit card processing fees. "We're excited to offer merchants a more cost-effective way to do business," said Andrew Siden, CEO of Prepaid Ventures. "With the cash discount program, merchants are able to keep more of the money they earn and can accept all the ways their customers would like to pay."
NMI and Infinicept entered a collaborative agreement whereby Infinicept's underwriting and boarding modules can be integrated with NMI's facilitator enablement (FACe) platform. According to NMI, the combination creates a unique and powerful end-to-end boarding, underwriting and processing framework for payment facilitators using NMI's FACe platform.
Payscout Inc. partnered in leveraging HealPay's settlement solutions with Payscout's payment processing engine to help increase processing volume for card-not-present merchants. "When merchants deploy consumer friendly software, they process more payments," said Erick Bzovi, HealPay co-founder and CEO. "Our partnership with Payscout gives HealPay a strong back-end provider, allowing us to scale into new markets and attract more growth-oriented merchants."
Trulio, in partnership with Mitek Systems Inc., launched an ID document verification solution with facial comparison technology that relies on Mitek's mobile capture and identity verification software to analyze and authenticate 3,500 different types of passports, driver licenses and identity cards from nearly every country, the partners stated.
Visa, in collaboration with Cambia Health Solutions, integrated Visa Direct's near real-time payment technology into Cambia's payment platform. By merging Visa Direct with new technology developed by Cambia to capture and process claims, consumers can submit claims and request reimbursements to eligible debit cards from mobile devices, the companies noted.
ACQUISITIONSCayan acquired Card Payment Services LLC., a Dallas-based payment processor specializing in the $75 billion waste removal vertical segment. CPS's nationwide portfolio represents annual processing volume of over $700 million. In addition to waste haulers, CPS serves municipalities, waste equipment providers, transfer stations and other players within the waste management industry. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
ControlScan Inc. and EchoSat Inc. merged to deliver managed security and PCI compliance products to a combined client base of over 775,000 payment card accepting merchant locations across North America. The consolidated company hopes to help mitigate payment and cybersecurity risk for merchant clients. The combined organization will operate under the ControlScan name and maintain its headquarters at ControlScan's Alpharetta, Georgia facilities.
Electronic Payments Inc. acquired mobile ordering app MobileNosh to enhance offerings for small- to midsize-businesses (SMBs) using its Exatouch POS system. MobileNosh enables merchants to build and manage menus in the cloud and extend mobile and online ordering to clients free of charge. EPI plans to integrate MobileNosh into its Exatouch platform as well as make it available to users of its eGiftSolutions online gift card program.
EVO Payments International acquired remaining ownership interest from long-time partner Zenith Merchant Services, a Montreal-based payment processing provider to U.S. and Canadian based SMBs. "We have worked with Zenith for nearly eight years and have been impressed by their ability to grow their organization into a leading provider of payment solutions to the merchant market," said Brendan Tansill, EVO President, North America.
APPOINTMENTSJack Henry & Associates Inc. appointed President and CEO David Foss to the Board of Directors effective July 1, 2017. The appointment expands the Board to nine members, including seven independent outside directors, and two non-independent directors. According to Jack Prim, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, "He [David] has done an excellent job of positioning our company as President and CEO and we are confident that he will complement his fellow Board members to help us grow the company in the future."
PSCU added payments and credit union industry veteran Chris Gunnare to its senior leadership team. Gunnare will fill the role of Chief Member Experience Officer. A payments and credit union industry veteran with an extensive network, Gunnare joins PSCU with more than 24 years experience at TMG where he served on the executive leadership team leading growth efforts, strategic partnerships and client relationship initiatives.
Verifone appointed Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President and General Manager of IoT and Applications for Cisco Systems, to its Board of Directors. Trollope is a 26-year veteran of the enterprise software industry. He joined Cisco in 2012 to lead the re-invention of its collaboration business, and is currently responsible for delivering the company's IoT technology solutions across multiple market segments. "We welcome the opportunity to add Rowan Trollope to the board," said Alex W. (Pete) Hart, Verifone Chairman.
Priscilla Zarate joined the Payix executive team as Finance & Accounting Leader. In this role, Zarate will serve as the firm's controller and lead the financial planning, accounting and payment processing functions. She will report directly to Payix President Chris Chestnut. Zarate has worked in corporate financial roles for 10 years, including as Controller for Innovate Auto Finance.
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