Welcome to Five at Five, your late look at the day’s payments and commerce news. Coverage includes a look at the latest job for Alexa and why Google is teaming up with travel startup Peek. Visa is dealing with a U.K. outage, healthcare is being disrupted by two major happenings this week and Uber might give patient riders a break.
Amazon’s Alexa ‘Checks in’ to Marriott Hotels
The popular voice assistant will help guests with tasks, such as ordering room service or asking for housekeeping, without the need to pick up the phone.
Peek Raises $23M, Inks a Deal With Google
Peek wants to overhaul the travel industry with technology. The startup has plenty of well-known angel backers, including Pete Flint — founder of Trulia and NFX — former Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Visa Hiring Third Party to Look Into UK Payment Outage
Earlier this month, Visa suffered an eight-hour outage that created problems for merchants around the U.K. and beyond. The payments company also said it will reimburse card-issuing banks who made payments to customers as a result of the outage, and will waive the fees on the transactions that failed to complete.
Pill Delivery and Medical Payments: The Latest in Healthcare Disruption
A prescription delivery program and a deal involving medical payments data show how the healthcare industry is quickly changing as technology develops, and as Amazon prepares its own major moves.
Uber to Charge Less for Riders Willing to Wait
Uber account executive Gregory Jacobs accidentally turned to Twitter and tweeted out a screenshot of a new feature that showed if Jacobs waited longer for the ride, he would get a cheaper fare.
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