Top News In Payments: FreshBooks Unveils Same-Day Deposits; Amazon Australia Teams With Zip Co

In today’s top payments news, FreshBooks has integrated with JPMorgan Chase’s WePay to provide small businesses with same-day as well as next-day deposits. Also, Amazon Australia is teaming with buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Zip Co. And JPMorgan Chase developed an eWallet product for tech firms to help them provide clients with virtual bank accounts.

JPMC Opens eWallet So Tech Firms Can Offer Virtual Bank Accounts

JPMorgan Chase developed an eWallet product for tech firms designed to help them provide clients with virtual bank accounts. Tech companies benefit by avoiding payment processing fees to third-party vendors when clients use their virtual accounts for payments, while JPMorgan benefits by being the sole payment processing as well as cash movement firm for firms that offer the eWallet to their customers.

FreshBooks Offers Same-Day Deposits To SMBs

FreshBooks has integrated with JPMorgan Chase’s WePay to provide small businesses with same-day as well as next-day deposits. FreshBooks Payments enables its U.S. customers with a Chase bank account to access funds with WePay the same day a client makes a payment. And clients who don’t bank with Chase can access funds as fast as the next day.

Amazon Australia Integrates BNPL Startup Zip Co

Amazon Australia is teaming with buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Zip Co. News of the tie-up triggered a 24.1 percent surge in Zip’s share price. The arrangement also provides Zip with an edge in the congested but thriving BNPL space. An Amazon affiliate will have a seven-year option of buying up to 14.6 million of Zip’s shares at a fixed price with the agreement.

Square Cash Bolstered By Bitcoin

Square reported better-than-expected results for the third quarter and a brighter revenue forecast for the remainder of the year than analysts were expecting. Adjusted earnings per share climbed to 25 cents from 13 cents at this time last year, well above analysts’ estimates of 20 cents. Revenue arrived at $1.27 billion for the quarter or $602 million after subtracting transaction-based costs as well as bitcoin costs.

Moving FI, FinTech Partnerships Beyond The Press Release

Big announcements of new partnerships between FinTechs and mainstream payments as well as financial services players are released by the dozens. As for the “game changing” innovations they promise will “reshape” the landscape? As Flywire CEO Mike Massaro told Karen Webster in a recent conversation, that often depends on what the flavor of the month might be in payments and financial services.

“How many times in the last few years have we seen what are basically press release partnerships where a big player will come to the table to announce they are testing a new technology, like blockchain, recently?” Massaro said. “And you see FinTechs racing to get as many press releases out there with as many banking partners as they can because they want to build PR momentum.”

Visa On Challenging B2B Payments Status Quo

To change the status quo, the mantra goes, “think outside the box.” In the case of payments, that mantra is think beyond the rails. To that end, Alan Koenigsberg, global head of new payment flows at Visa Business Solutions, said in a Masterclass interview with Karen Webster that the B2B space represents a landscape full of opportunity.

He noted that there is $120 trillion in annual B2B spend across the globe and approximately $4 trillion of that tally takes place via card payments. Koenigsberg told Webster, “The rest of it is wire payments with foreign exchange, domestic wires, as well as cash and other types of transactions and checks.”

For Visa, he added, the focus has been on streamlining the way B2B payments are made, with an emphasis on serving a range of financial institutions.