In this week’s news, we saw Lloyds Bank is teaming up with Mastercard to launch PayFrom Bank. Also, new insights have emerged on social commerce and restaurant rewards. The Weekender is here to catch you up.
News
Mastercard Teams With Lloyds Bank For Open Banking API
Lloyds Bank is teaming up with Mastercard to launch PayFrom Bank, a solution that gives people the power to make direct payments to merchants from their bank accounts. Mastercard’s open banking merchant solution offers freedom of choice to both sellers and consumers when it is time to check out, Kelly Devine, divisional president of Mastercard U.K. and Ireland, said in a press release on Monday (July 26).
Visa Payments Volume Up 34 Pct With Debit The ‘Engine Of Cash Digitization’
Visa’s fiscal third-quarter net revenues surged 27 percent year over year to $6.1 billion, better than the $5.8 billion expected. Payments volume grew 34 percent to $2.7 trillion (as measured in constant dollars). The company said that overall credit payments volume was $1.2 trillion, up 31 percent in constant dollar terms. Debit payments volume, at $1.4 trillion, was 37 percent higher than last year.
Goldman, Fiserv, Team On X-Border Supplier Payments
Goldman Sachs and financial services company Fiserv have teamed on a new initiative aimed at streamlining B2B cross-border supplier payments, Fiserv announced on Monday (July 26). The partnership will give Fiserv clients access to Goldman’s centralized cloud-based payment suite to carry out cross-border payments natively using existing accounts payable/accounts receivable solutions like SnapPay, according to the news release.
Square Aims To Do For Small Business Banking What Its Card Readers Did For POS
In an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Christina Riechers, Square Banking’s head of product, said that the latest suite of financial products for small businesses, Square Banking, can fill a “gap” in business banking that has bedeviled smaller firms for a long time — and levels the playing field with their larger brethren a bit, in terms of cash flow management. For the company itself, she said, Square Banking marks both a departure and an evolution from its original journey as a mobile point of sale (POS) provider that catered to cash-based smaller businesses that wanted to accept payment in plastic.
McDonald’s Aims To Become McData As Digital Strategy Takes Center Stage
Year-to-date systemwide sales from digital channels across McDonald’s top six markets were nearly $8 billion — a 70 percent increase versus the prior year. In the U.S., comparable sales were up nearly 15 percent on a two-year basis and were up just under 26 percent from a year ago. The top line, consolidated, surged by 40 percent year on year to $5.8 billion, outpacing the $5.6 billion that had been in place as the consensus estimate.
Trackers and Reports
NEW DATA: Two-Thirds Of Consumers Find Restaurant Rewards Impersonal
PYMNTS research shows that the most common way that restaurant customers want to be rewarded for their patronage is with free food and discounts, with 78 percent and 66 percent of reward users saying so, respectively. This compares to 38 percent who say they want exclusive access to restaurants and 32 percent who want customized restaurant menus.
How The Digital Shift Is Coming To Colleges’ Financial Offices
PYMNTS’ research indicates that the digital shift that has so altered students’ learning experiences has not necessarily extended to schools’ financial offices. Nearly three-quarters of leaders in these offices consider their payment operations only somewhat effective at best, and this is not for lack of spending.
Twitter’s Social Commerce Ambitions Highlight Need For Better ID Verification, Biometrics
Digital identity verification spending is expected to grow as the volume of synthetic identity fraud expands, with one study predicting that such spending will reach $16.7 billion by 2026 compared to the $9.4 billion projected for this year. It is clear that robust digital identification is important to businesses as social media platforms become more integral to their connections with consumers, and social media firms will need to adjust their authentication strategies accordingly.
Fun, Cool and Otherwise Interesting
Singapore Retailers Hurt By New COVID Restrictions
Singapore last week unveiled an $808 million aid package — 1.1 billion in that country’s currency — aimed at helping workers and businesses affected by the nation’s latest COVID-19 restrictions. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on July 22, Rose Tong of the Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) said sales have declined between 50 and 80 percent with every new round of pandemic restrictions.
Lenders, Dealers Thriving In Hot Auto Market
With Americans shopping for cars at a near-record pace and a computer chip shortage meaning that dealers are struggling to meet that demand, the average price of a used car was $18,453 in June, up more than one-third over the same time a year ago, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The sales process is perhaps doing wonders to highlight the digitization of the auto-buying experience across channels and possible points of friction. PYMNTS research shows that 55 percent of auto dealers are planning to invest in identity verification and authentication improvements.
France Requires ‘COVID Passes’ For Travel, Dining Out
The French parliament has passed a new law requiring all health workers to get vaccinated, and has also mandated special COVID passes for anyone who wants to eat in a restaurant or travel by plane or train. According to The Associated Press, both measures passed on Monday (July 26) amid protests and tension in the country, with President Emmanuel Macron saying these steps were necessary to protect people and hospitals as case counts rise.
Netflix Working On Live-Action Pokemon Series, Report Says
Netflix is developing a new Pokemon TV show, Variety reported. No details are known about the story, the report stated. The show might be a live-action series much like the feature film “Detective Pikachu” from 2019, which starred Ryan Reynolds and Justice Smith.
Shopify Will Let Merchants Sell NFTs
Shopify will allow its merchants to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs), President Harley Finkelstein announced on Monday (July 26), starting with a series commemorating the Chicago Bulls’ NBA championship rings. Earlier this year, the eCommerce platform said it was expanding its suite of services, which include Shopify Payments, Shopify Shipping, Shopify Capital and Shopify Fulfillment.
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