Top News In Payments: PayPal To Roll Out Venmo Credit Card; Mastercard Teams With WHSmith For Pay By Bank

Top News In Payments

Today in the payment’s news roundup, PayPal is teaming with Synchrony Financial to put forward a Venmo co-branded credit card next year. Also, Mastercard is collaborating with eCommerce retailers to offer online shoppers the Pay by Bank app, and Ant Financial is seeing an uptick in the desire for credit among small and medium-sized businesses.

Mastercard Partners With Four Retailers for Pay by Bank App

Mastercard is collaborating with eCommerce retailers to offer online shoppers the Pay by Bank app. Suren Nawalkar, senior vice president of consumer applications at Mastercard, said in a press release, “We are thrilled to be partnering with WHSmith and its brands Funky Pigeon, Cult Pens and The Card Gallery to bring this revolutionary new way to pay, putting the customer firmly in control of their finances.”

PayPal Launches Venmo Credit Card

PayPal is teaming with Synchrony Financial to put forward a Venmo co-branded credit card in 2020, which marks a first for the peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer platform. Venmo started with P2P payments and rolled out a debit card last year. It also offers a “pay with Venmo” option with partners such as Uber.

Despite China’s Slowing Economy, Credit Demand Still Strong

Ant Financial is seeing an uptick in the desire for credit among small and medium-sized businesses, even with the economic slowdown in China. Chairman Eric Jing told Bloomberg that the private sector continues to be healthy due to new technology like mobile payments and digital loans.

China’s GDP Near 30-Year Low as Trade War Impacts Factory Work

Economic growth in China reached a near-30-year low in Q3 as tariffs have started to negatively affect factory production. The slowdown was worse than anticipated, with gross domestic product (GDP) growth at the slowest since 1992. GDP only rose 6 percent year on year.

Trending: Data Aggregation Makes Home Mortgages Cheaper

According to Eric Bloomquist, chief product officer of loan-focused personal finance tool FinLocker, and Jamie Rhodes, product owner, customers’ confusion can also lead to longer loan underwriting timelines and less favorable interest rates. In this month’s Feature Story, Bloomquist and Rhodes explain the obstacles slowing down mortgage underwriting and how customer education resources in addition to aggregation, data storage and validation tools can help lenders and borrowers save time and money.

Mastercard and Branch to Fast-Track Pay for Hourly Workers

According to a study released jointly by PYMNTS and Mastercard, a large share of gig workers live paycheck to paycheck, and over a third of them wait a minimum of a week for their wages. But what Mastercard has come to appreciate, Senior Vice President of Digital Partnerships Adam Granoff noted, is that gig workers aren’t the only segment of the workforce that is looking to manage shortfalls between regularly scheduled pay periods.