Top News In Payments: Wells Fargo Appoints COO; Visa Names New Partners To Help FinTechs

PYMNTS Top News in Payments

In today’s top payments news, Wells Fargo has selected former Santander head executive Scott Powell to be its new chief operating officer. Also, Visa is working with four global finance firms to help FinTechs issue plastic as well as digital payments. And London’s digital unicorn Monzo has appointed TS Anil to head up U.S. operations.

 

Wells Taps Former Santander Chief For COO Role

Wells Fargo has tapped former Santander head executive Scott Powell to be its new chief operating officer. Powell, who will start his new job on Dec. 9, will report directly to company CEO and President Charlie Scharf. He will also serve on the bank’s operating committee. Powell most recently worked as Santander Holdings USA’s CEO, and he was also the CEO of Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc.

Amazon Launches Voice Transcription Tool For Doctors

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is rolling out a voice transcription tool for doctors at its re:Invent conference. Amazon Transcribe Medical transcribes interactions between doctors and patients and transfers the information to health records. “Our overarching goal is to free up the doctor, so they have more attention going to where it should be directed,” Matt Wood, VP of artificial intelligence (AI) at AWS, said per reports, “And that’s to the patient.”

New Visa Alliances Help FinTechs Launch Payments Solutions

Visa is working with four global finance firms to help FinTechs issue plastic as well as digital payments. The four new partners — Euronet Worldwide, Episode Six, M2P Solutions and Global Processing Services — have joined the Visa FinTech Fast Track program. The partner firms will collaborate with Visa to enable faster go-to-market for FinTechs seeking to roll out new payment solutions. 

UK Digital Bank Monzo Taps Visa Exec As US CEO

Monzo, London’s digital unicorn, has appointed TS Anil to lead U.S. operations. Anil was the global head of payment products and platforms at Visa and will join Monzo early next year to head up the U.S. team. He will report to Monzo CEO and Co-Founder Tom Blomfield. Anil has more than 25 years of experience in payments, banking and credit cards, working globally across Europe, Africa and the Middle East as well as the Americas and Asia Pacific. 

Inside The Launch Of Colorado’s New State-Run Digital Driver’s License

Driver’s licenses are one of the most common methods for traditional identity verification, making them a natural fit for a digital upgrade. Colorado is one of 12 states currently developing a digital driver’s license program, with the October rollout of the myColorado app.

In a feature story, PYMNTS spoke with Russell Castagnaro, director of digital transformation at the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology, about the functionality of myColorado and how it meets the concerns of resident over privacy as well as security.

How Instant Payments Ignited In Just Three Short Years

Instant payments today are limited to specific market slices as well as demographic sets — instant payroll disbursements for gig workers or peer-to-peer (P2P) payments among millennial consumers. What’s next, Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards said in a recent conversation with Karen Webster, is a world where instant payments won’t be unique at all anymore; they will be so ubiquitous that we will probably just be referring to them as payments — because the instant part will be implied.

“Can you imagine coming up to a gas pump and being unable to pay right there, or pulling up to a fast food place and not being able to choose the drive-thru?” he asked. “I think some things are obviously so much better when it comes to customer experience that ultimately when they are in the market, they are just going to change it. No one wants to pay for gas inside, no one is looking to stand in line for Chick-fil-A, and no one wants to wait on getting paid if they don’t have to.”