The Top Five Headlines At Five: What’s Trending Today

Got a minute?

Or five?

Here’s what’s trending today in the world of payments, commerce and….tattoo payments?

Today’s Top 5 PYMNTS headlines:

Max Levchin’s Affirm Rumored To Have Raised $100 Million

According to reports by The Wall Street Journal, Affirm — the FinTech startup fronted by Max Levchin — has picked up a fat $100 million in Series D funding. The round was reportedly led by Founders Fund.

That means the alternative lending startup, which helps business offer consumers lines of credit, is now skirting close to unicorn territory with a valuation of $800 million, according to PitchBook Data. The research firm based those figures off of a Delaware filing on the round. A filing that Affirm has not confirmed exists at the moment.

Starbucks’ New Rewards Regime (And Its Discontents)

The new My Starbucks Rewards has a new app, with a new look and a new method of rewarding points for purchases. The old system rewarded frequency of visits — every time you purchased anything at Starbucks, be it a simple cup of black coffee or $100 worth of food and drinks for you and all your co-workers, you got a star. Every 12 stars, regular customers got a free drink. At 30 stars one qualified for Gold membership status, which opened up a variety of perks.

Coming Soon: Tattoo Payments

Health tech firm MC10 and custom product solution design group PCH announced they signed an agreement to embark on a partnership to design low-profile, flexible, stretchable and disposable wearables that consumers can apply directly to their skin. Scott Pomerantz, president and CEO at MC10, explained that the two companies’ combined expertise will allow them to perfect MC10’s Wearable Interactive Stamp Platform, despite how far-fetched it may seem.

Shopify Commerce Comes To Messenger

As part of the new Messenger Platform — which allows merchants to exercise within Facebook Messenger a number of capabilities, including providing live customer support, automatically sending order confirmations, shipping updates and pushing notifications — Shopify will foster the development of stronger, one-on-one relationships between U.S.-based merchants and their customers.

Magento CEO On The ‘Other’ Omnichannel

Omnichannel isn’t only about helping merchants cross the digital/physical chasm, says Magento CEO Mark Lavelle. The need to integrate across all of the online and mobile channels that merchants and consumers touch is just as important – and every bit as complex. Lavelle tells Karen Webster that simplifying that complexity is just one of the things that Magento’s new cloud-based Platform as a Service aims to do.