Global payments news was humming this week and we’ve got a news roundup to keep you on top of the latest developments. With a record US Black Friday sales weekend, fraud prevention firm iovation estimates 15% of transactions online were fraudulent. The record US Black Friday sales topped $9.4 billion according to Adobe Analytics. Wikibuy looks at the growth of online grocery shopping and offers retailers tips to capitalize.
In the roundup, fintech bank Chime has quadrupled in value to $5.8 billion in just one year. EU finance ministers expressed reservations about digital currencies like Facebook Libra vowing regulations to protect consumers. PCI SSC new standards for contactless payments to enable easier user adoption for new devices. Cash payments in Canada dropped 40% in the last five years due to many new digital options. Debit cards overtook cash payments in the US for the first time at 28% of transactions according to several Fed Reserve banks.
Thales research said 62% of US financial institutions have experienced a breach compared with 42% of retailers. Visa and MoneyGram launched cross-border payments services using Visa Direct. World Bank Group estimates $1.7 billion adults, roughly 25% of the world’s population, remain unbanked. That’s your global payments news roundup for this week. Enjoy.
15% of US online holiday sales were potentially fraudulent
When it comes to online fraud, US Thanksgiving was a turkey for online sellers as online fraud jumped 29% compared to 2018 according to new research from fraud prevention firm iovation. The company estimates 15% of total holiday long weekend online sales were potentially fraudulent. With online shopping sales of $81.5 billion from Nov 1 through Dec 2 according to Adobe Analytics, that means fraud could possibly cost businesses more than $12 billion to date. Read more…
Cyber Monday sends sales records tumbling
The results are all in except for the exchanges and gift returns and Cyber Monday set record US online sales of more than $9.4 billion, up 19.7% over last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Even more noteworthy was the $3 billion spent using smartphones on Cyber Monday, a sign of things to come in retail and e-commerce. Online purchases by devices between November 1 and December 2 showed 60.4% purchased via desktop, smartphone (34.5%), and tablets (5.1%) according to Adobe. Read more…
Online grocery shopping and what it means for online retailers
Trends indicate that Americans are using their mobile devices more frequently to make online purchases, be it groceries or other products. As society leans more on technology, will people be willing to overlook factors of inconvenience, like high delivery fees or the chance that their groceries could be stolen right off their doorstep? These are all considerations that shoppers and retailers alike have to consider as online grocery shopping inevitably becomes more common. Read more…
Chime is 4 times the company it was
Online bank Chime has quadrupled its value in less than a year. Nine months after a valuation of $1.5 billion, the U.S. digital bank is now pegged at $5.8 billion. It just raised a record $500 million in a Series E, showing that massive funding rounds are still available for some start-ups. Chime will use the money to build on its torrid growth, including doubling the company’s headcount by 2020 and potentially acquiring competitors, the people said. Read more…
EU agrees on tough line on digital currencies like Facebook’s Libra
Private digital currencies like Facebook’s Libra should not be allowed in the European Union until the risks they could pose are clearly addressed, EU finance ministers agreed on Thursday. “No global stablecoin arrangement should begin operation in the European Union until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks have been adequately identified and addressed,” the ministers said in a joint statement. Read more…
PCI SSC publishes new standards to grow use of contactless payments
The PCI Security Standards Council published a new data security standard that will let merchants accept contactless payments using commercial off-the-shelf mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets that utilize near field communications. The idea is to create a standard security framework so merchants can accept payment on these devices without the need for additional hardware. Read more…
Cash payments in Canada declined 40% in 5 years: report
Cash payments in Canada declined 40% in volume over the last five years, according to a recent report from Payments Canada, an organization that operates a payment clearing and settlement system in the country. According to the report, Canadians are rapidly adopting newer digital channels, such as contactless, e-commerce, mobile and online transfers, in favor of cash. The newly released 2019 report analyzed the 21.1 billion payment transactions made in the country in 2018, totaling more than C$9.9 trillion ($7.5 trillion) in value. Read more…
Debit cards overtake cash as most popular payment type, according to Fed
The growing popularity of debit cards and the displacement of cash by card and electronic payment alternatives is nothing new, but a Federal Reserve banks’ report released Thursday shows debit cards for the first time have surpassed cash as the most-used payment type. “In October 2018, consumers made more payments with debit cards than with any other payment instrument (28% of payments),” the survey report says. Read more…
Sobering 62% of US financial-services entities have been breached, Thales says
Despite 96% of US financial-services organizations considering their technology security as adequate, 62% of those responding to a Thales survey said they experienced a breach. Many US financial services organizations have strict data-security and similar requirements to contend with, but their breach rate outpaces other industries. Retail, at 42%, was the next highest among those ever experiencing a breach. Read more…
MoneyGram’s launch of Visa Direct overseas spotlights Visa’s strategy for cross-border payments
Visa is working fast to expand its foothold in cross-border remittances, a relatively new market for the card network. On Wednesday, MoneyGram International announced it is the first remittance service to allow international transfers that rely on Visa Direct, a push-payment service that enables real-time transfers to holders of Visa-branded debit cards. The new service, which has been available within the United States since September, is starting with transfers to Spain and the Philippines. Read more…
An untapped market: The unbanked shopper
Many of us assume that everyone has a bank account of some sort. But according to the latest report from World Bank Group, around 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked globally. That’s roughly one-fourth of the global population. As most people would expect, the report shows that the majority of unbanked adults live in the developing world, in areas of Bangladesh, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan. However, less predictably, the main factor for large portions of people remaining unbanked in these countries isn’t necessarily their income level. Read more…
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