global payments news

Here’s what we found noteworthy in the global payments news this week. Brightwell with NCR is growing its payments niche market with cruiseship crews. Google Bank? The tech giant announced plans for a new banking account service in partnership with Citigroup. A record $38.4 billion for Alibaba in one Singles Day 24-hour. Yowza! We also take a fresh look at algorithm bias and what it might mean to financial services providers and clients.

In the payments news roundup, lots was happening aside from the impeachment. Facebook Pay launched in the US, startup Sokin pledged to turn the remittance world upside down, and HSBC and RBS launched digital banking trials in the UK. Tencent’s WeChat Pay announced collaborations with Visa, MasterCard and other global credit cards. Nike ran away from sales on Amazon.com while Walmart.com e-commerce sales grew 41% in the most recent quarter despite losses and a $294 million write-off on its Indian e-commerce platform Jabong. Enjoy your weekend reading and get ready for Black Friday!

Cruising for payments: Brightwell grows unique market niche

Brightwell Payments serves cruiseship crew

Brightwell and NCR announced the two companies will collaborate to provide financial services including cross-border remittance, P2P transfers, digital bank accounts and ATM access for several of Brightwell’s largest cruise line clients. Brightwell’s mobile-first platform and suite of financial tools simplify personal finances and provide safe, secure, useful features built just for workers employed away from home for extended periods of time on cruise ships and other employment around the world. Read more… 

Welcome to Google Bank?

Bigtech banks coming

It’s official. In 2020, Google will introduce checking accounts for its Google Pay customers in partnership initially with Citigroup and Stanford Federal Credit Union. Analysts expect the new checking account will not carry the Google name but rather be branded with the partner bank name. That’s a curious marketing decision at first glance but analysts see other goals in sight for the search engine giant including big data. Read more… 

All you need to know about 2019 Singles Day sales

2019 Singles Day sales results

The numbers are in and it was another massive Singles Day sales success with more than $38.4 billion in sales in just 24 hours. That’s more than Amazon’s entire third-quarter sales – in one day. The best way to get a handle on it is to simply look at the data from Alibaba’s news release, so here we go… $1 billion in sales in the first 68 seconds; 1.3 billion delivery orders processed… Read more… 

Follow the money bias

facial recognition technology bias

I was thinking about a very compelling book I’ve been reading called Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow by UCLA professor Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan. He’s studied, written about, and traveled the world looking into technology and its impact and the disconnect between users and designers, producers and consumers, and technology elites and the rest of us. Read more… 

Facebook Pay launches for US users on Messenger and Facebook

Facebook Pay

Facebook has announced its new payments system, Facebook Pay, just weeks after the likes of Visa, PayPal and Mastercard pulled out of its Libra Project. The new system will allow users to send money to friends, shop through Facebook Marketplace, buy tickets or games and donate to charitable causes across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Read more… 

Sokin CEO: We’ll turn remittances on its head

Sokin remittances

Remittance start-up Sokin says it’s the first in the world to charge one flat monthly fee for withdrawals to external bank accounts outside Europe with zero transaction fees and good foreign exchange rates. Entering into a $680 million market, the start-up is confident its business model is “unique” in a world where remittance payments still take 2-3 days. Read more… 

HSBC and RBS race to launch new digital banking platforms

RBS launches digital platform Bo

HSBC has announced its app-based service for small business customers – HSBC Kinetic – is in beta testing, just as RBS, through NatWest, is gearing up to launch its new digital bank Bó to the public later this month. Formerly known as Project Iceberg, HSBC’s new mobile-first banking platform is designed to analyze spend and offer cashflow features to serve the small business economy. Read more… 

Tencent WeChat Pay collaboration with Visa, Mastercard, other major cards

WeChat Pay

Tencent announced it has launched collaboration deals with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express and JCB to enable overseas cardholders to link their accounts to WeChat Pay for payment and services in China, in an emailed statement provided by the company. The collaboration will allow overseas cardholders to use WeChat Pay to pay for hotel rooms, transportation, restaurants, and shopping or online purchases on CTrip or JD.com. Read more… 

Nike pulling its products from Amazon in e-commerce pivot

Nike pulls out of Amazon.com

Nike is breaking up with Amazon.com Inc. The athletic brand will stop selling its sneakers and apparel directly on Amazon’s website, ending a pilot program that began in 2017. The split comes amid a massive overhaul of Nike’s retail strategy and follows the hiring of ex-eBay CEO John Donahoe CEO – a move that signals the company is going even more aggressively after e-commerce sales, apparently without Amazon’s help. Read more…

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon: ‘We need even more progress on Walmart.com’

Walmart plans Town Centers

Walmart is admitting it still has work to do online. The big-box retailer said Thursday its e-commerce sales were up 41% during the latest quarter, thanks to a strong grocery business. CEO Doug McMillon said “…we need even more progress on Walmart.com with general merchandise. We’re mixing the business out better to achieve better margin rates, but there is more work to do…. our marketplace sellers want that, and so do we.” Read more… 

Walmart incurs $290 million impairment due to Jabong acquisition; eyes robust growth from Flipkart, PhonePe

Jabong

Walmart took a non-cash impairment charge of $290 million for the value of the ‘Jabong’ trade name in the third quarter, even as the US retail giant continues to bet on the “significant opportunity for growth” presented by the Indian market. The Bentonville-based company logged a 2.5 percent rise in revenue at $128 billion for the third quarter, even as its operating income fell by 5.4 per cent to $4.7 billion. Read more…