Top News In Payments: China Posts Worst Slowdown In Nearly Three Decades; Alphabet Market Cap Hits $1T

In today’s top news, China’s economy grew by its slowest rate since 1990, Alphabet reached $1 trillion market value, and attempted check fraud spiked 43 percent.

China Posts Worst Slowdown In Nearly Three Decades

China’s economy grew by 6.1 percent in 2019, the lowest growth rate in the country since 1990. The country has struggled to face rising debt, domestic challenges, and a two-year trade war with the U.S.

Alphabet Market Cap Hits $1T

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reached $1 trillion market value, joining Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in hitting the milestone. Facebook could be the next $1 trillion tech giant.

Attempted Check Fraud Spiked 43 Pct. In Two Years

Check fraud has spiked from $8.5 billion in 2016 to $15.1 billion in 2018 and makes up 60 percent of all attempted fraud against U.S. bank deposit accounts, according to a survey released by the American Bankers Association.

Global Blue Acquisition Capitalizes On Consumer X-Border Spend

Far Point Acquisition — which focuses on financial technology deals —said it would buy Global Blue, a payments company based in Switzerland, for $2.6 billion.

Oscar Health: Using Tech To Take The Pain Out Of B2B Healthcare Payments

Health insurance companies can take weeks — or months — to reimburse physicians for patient treatments, leaving some doctors so frustrated that they refuse to accept insurance plans entirely. To retain providers, insurers must upgrade their manual processes and offer speedy digital disbursements. In the B2B Healthcare Payments Report, Vice President of Insurance Operations Brett Lotito for Oscar Health discusses the viability of using physician portals and automated claims assessments to get doctors paid within just five days.

This Week In Payments: New Frontiers — Visa And Plaid; Goldman And Marcus; And Big Doings ’Bout SMB Payments

The second full week of 2020 is in full swing. Visa bought Plaid, Goldman Sachs tossed out not one, but two Marcus milestones and small to medium-sized businesses’ (SMBs’) cash flow crisis got richly illustrated with some new numbers. Ingo Money’s CEO sat down with Karen Webster to talk about what happened, and why we’ll likely be watching the reverberations from this week for some time.

New Year, New Mergers Sizzle For Payments Companies

Only two weeks into 2020, mergers and deal-making in payments, specifically within digital payments and FinTech, are sizzling.