What a week! While the US waits for a clear election winner, the payments world was busy as usual. Here’s a fresh news roundup to keep you informed on the latest developments in the global payments industry. Top companies in the news include Visa/Plaid, Ant Group, Worldline/Ingenico, UK PPP fraud, ING, WhatsApp, Paytm, California Prop 24, and Home Depot Canada.
US DOJ blocks Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of fintech Plaid [Updated]
Yesterday, The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit meant to challenge and block Visa’s planned $5.3 billion acquisition of fintech startup Plaid. By acquiring Plaid, Visa would eliminate a nascent competitive threat that would likely result in substantial savings and more innovative online debit services for merchants and consumers,” DOJ’s Antitrust Division claimed. Visa responded saying “the action reflects a lack of understanding of Plaid’s business and the highly competitive payments landscape in which Visa operates.” Read more…
Ant Group’s record $34 billion IPO will be world’s largest [Update: suspended by regulators]
CNBC reported today (Nov 3) that “Ant Group’s controller Jack Ma, executive chairman Eric Jing and CEO Simon Hu were summoned and interviewed by regulators in China, according to a statement Monday from the China Securities Regulatory Commission.” The result is that the Hong Kong and Shanghai securities exchanges have temporarily postponed the company’s IPO pending clarification from the company and China regulators. Read more…
Worldline completes $8.6bn acquisition of Ingenico
French payments firm Worldline has completed its $8.6 billion acquisition of compatriot Ingenico, creating the largest merchant acquirer and payments processor in Europe. Regulators gave the green light for the merger, originally announced in February, earlier this month. Worldline CEO, Gilles Grapinet, will take charge of the combined company. Ingenico chairman, Bernard Bourigeaud, has become non-executive chairman. Read more…
UK banks nix $1.3B in fraudulent ‘Bounce-Back’ loans
The UK version of the Paycheck Protection Program is also getting hit up by fraudsters, though British bankers appear to be a step ahead in short-circuiting the scams. Catherine Lewis La Torre, chief executive of the British Business Bank, says UK banks have rejected nearly 27,000 “bounce-back” loans since the program was launched in May, the Financial Times reports preventing $1.3 billion in potential fraud. Read more…
ING pumps brakes on digital banking plans, plans 1,000 job cuts
Dutch lender ING is undergoing a dramatic realignment of its digital banking plans after a 41.4% drop in net profits. Maggie, ING’s project creating a standardized customer experience across in four European countries, is to be “considerably reduced”. The switch of strategy has cost ING €140 million in sunk software development costs. On top of that, it will cost the jobs of up to 1,000 employees by the end of 2021. Read more…
Facebook’s WhatsApp to expand Indian payments service after NPCI approval
WhatsApp has won a green light to expand its payments service in India after a two-year pilot program by the Facebook-owned service. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the country’s popular UPI (Unified Payments Interface) system, said it is giving permission for WhatsApp to expand its payments services in a “graded manner.” WhatsApp will now be able to sign up to 20 million users for its payments service, though it is also required to work with a number of banks. Read more…
Paytm teams with SBI to deliver contactless Visa cards
India’s largest payments firm, Paytm, is partnering with SBI Card, the country’s biggest pure-play credit card issuer, to launch two contactless cards on the Visa platform. Paytm Lending said in a statement that by aligning with SBI Card, Paytm can introduce a credit card with intelligent features including rewards that roll over and are always valid. The cards will assist users in developing “a healthier financial life” by using the Paytm app to analyze their spending. Read more…
California just passed tougher privacy rules that may reverberate nationwide
Companies operating in California will have to comply with tougher data privacy rules after voters approved Proposition 24. The measure, also known as the California Privacy Rights Act, passed with 56% of the vote as of midday Wednesday. Prop 24 revamps California’s current-year-old data privacy law, known as the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), which gave residents the ability to demand that companies disclose and delete any personal data they gathered about them. Read more…
Home Depot Canada scrambles to quickly repair customer data breach
Home Depot Canada appears to have mistakenly emailed an undetermined number of existing customers the data purchase and confirmation info of hundreds of other Canadian customers by mistake. The breach first popped up on Twitter on Wednesday morning (Oct 28) in a tweet from a customer in Ontario who said he received an email with customer purchase information and confirmation data for hundreds of other Home Depot customers in Canada. Read more…
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