Five At Five: Discover Makes Friends With Amazon

Five at Five: Payments News

Welcome to Five at Five, your late look at the day’s payments and commerce news. Today’s coverage includes the nice things Discover’s new CEO is saying about Amazon, along with a Kroger-Walgreens retail partnership. The EU-Google dance continues, Apple goes to college and bots are getting into virtual currencies.

New Discover CEO Says Amazon Not a Foe

CEO Roger Hochschild said Amazon and Google are valuable partners for Discover, which utilizes Amazon’s cloud computing services and Google’s speech analytics technology for its call centers.

Kroger Teams Up With Walgreens for Grocery Pickup

With the experiment, Walgreens also plans to offer a selection of private-label Kroger products to its customers.

Google Provides EU With Second Shopping Report

Last year, the company was hit with a €2.4 billion (nearly $2.8 billion USD) antitrust fine after EU officials determined Google cooked its search results to benefit its own shopping services — and disadvantage the services of others.

Apple Lets College Students Store IDs on Apple Devices

Apple initially announced the service in June at its annual developer conference. Students are able to use a digital version of their ID to get into the school building and purchase lunch without the need for a physical card or cash.

Cryptocurrency Price Manipulation Courtesy of Bots

The manipulation of cryptocurrencies is getting attention from regulators who have been warning that these digital tokens, and the exchanges they are traded on, could be vulnerable to price manipulation.