PaymentsJournal

To alleviate the inflationary pressure on consumers and small businesses, the Australian government has announced plans to ban interchange fees on debit card purchases. The Australian central bank estimated that debit card surcharges cost customers A$1 billion ($671 million) per year. Debit card usage has picked up steam in the country since the pandemic, with the central bank reporting that less than 12% of retail transactions in Australia are made with cash. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eKfX3BZU #payments #debit #creditcard #interchangefees #australia

For a while, the prevailing idea was that there could be a gradual transition to ISO 20022, which led to a lot of wait-and-see approaches. Many participants were happy to let the first movers go in and see what the reaction was. By this point, that luxury is gone. The next step will involve actually using the data that will be included with these payments. The true winners in the ISO 20022 revolution will be those that can make the best use of all that data. “Start thinking about how you can leverage this new data to monetize the data and provide it to your customers,” Laura Sullivan, Senior Product Manager at Form3 said. “ISO is not going to make you money in and of itself, because you have to continue receiving the payments. But never stop asking yourself: What are those killer apps?” Read more: https://ow.ly/2XRF50TMJ3t #payments #ISO20022 #FedNow #RTP #financialmessaging

Consumers are increasingly concerned about privacy amid the rising tide of fraud and data breaches. While privacy protections are an essential way for financial institutions to gain consumer confidence, several other factors contribute to establishing cyber trust with consumers. In her latest report, Cyber Trust in Banking: Digital Path to Maturity, Tracy K., Director of Fraud and Security at Javelin Strategy & Research, relays the findings of her latest industry scorecard and details the progress financial institutions have made—and the areas they can improve on—with cyber trust. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e_kumcbS #fraud #privacy #databreaches #cybertrust

UK fintech Revolut was named in more fraud complaints than any of its peers last year, raising concerns about the digital-only bank’s fraud prevention program. According to the BBC, the 9,793 complaints against Revolut were nearly two thousand more than Barclays. Most of these incidents involved automated push payment (APP) fraud tactics, including one case where a Revolut customer was scammed out of ￡165,000. Read more: https://ow.ly/w3R750TM5e0 #fraud #APP #pushpayments

Barclays’ takeover of the General Motors line of credit cards is another coup for the American subsidiary of the UK-based bank. Barclays is assuming the card business from Goldman Sachs. Earlier this year, Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan made U.S. credit card expansion a priority, with a focus on co-branded partnerships. Starting next summer, Barclays will become the exclusive issuer of the GM Rewards Mastercard and the GM Business Mastercard. Read more: https://ow.ly/SU9j50TM4TC #payments #creditcard #credit

To preserve cash, organizations are asking their employees to do more with less. This often leads to frustration, cutbacks, extra hours, employee burnout, and inadequate tools for the job, ultimately impacting quality. But there’s a way to do more with less—more effectively. Companies should reevaluate their processes with a fresh perspective and approach tasks more intentionally. It’s important to focus on working more efficiently, maximizing the value of current resources, and leveraging the skills within teams to boost productivity. Read more: https://ow.ly/NEm450TLPw1 #payments #cashflow #cash #digitalpayments #cashvisibility Bottomline

Artificial intelligence has had a dramatic effect across industries in a short time. Accounting is no exception, but there has been speculation of whether AI would replace those working in the profession. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Ted Callahan, Accountant Leader at Intuit and Albert Bodine, Director of Commercial Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, explored key findings from the 2024 Intuit QuickBooks Accountant Technology Survey and their implications for the accounting sector – including how accountants are interacting with AI. The survey gathered insights from 700 accounting leaders to assess the impact of AI and technology on their firms. Read more: https://ow.ly/OY6I50TLIIp #payments #accounting #AI #artificialintelligence #compliance Jacob Jegher, Brian Riley, Jordan Hirschfield, Albert Bodine, Ryan Cole, Don Apgar, James Wester, Christopher Miller, PhD, Craig Lancaster, Sophia Gonzalez, Ben Danner, Matthew Gaughan, Elisa Athonvarangkul Tavilla, Suzanne Sando, Jennifer Pitt, Kevin Libby, Justin Hamel, Sandy Park

A recent cyberattack on American Water, the largest publicly regulated water and wastewater utility in the U.S., was just the latest in a series of attempts by hackers to infiltrate the nation’s water systems. Earlier this year, an attack in the Texas Panhandle caused a small town’s water system to overflow, a hack attributed to a Russian hacktivist group. U.S. intelligence agencies have also warned that state-sponsored hackers from China have successfully breached several critical infrastructure sectors, including water utilities. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eTC-JjHt #cybercrime #hackers #ransomware #watersystems

Stripe initiated its long-awaited support for stablecoin transactions, and the payments company reported facilitating transactions in 70 countries on its first day of operations. The company didn’t disclose the number of stablecoin transactions or the amounts transferred. Stripe now supports Circle’s USDC on the Ethereum, Solana and Polygon blockchains and Pax Dollar on Ethereum and Solana. Any stablecoin payment made on Stripe’s platform will be converted to U.S. dollars upon receipt and stored in a user’s Stripe wallet, minus a 1.5% transaction fee. Read more: https://ow.ly/Pk4050TL5KS #crypto #stablecoin #blockchain #cryptocurrency #ethereum

Listen to the FULL PODCAST: https://lnkd.in/gAisUX2n When the topic is prepaid cards, the store-branded or general-purpose gift cards at grocery stores and retailers might come to mind. However, a substantial number of businesses and organizations continually use prepaid cards for a range of cases, including employee incentives and customer rebates. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast,?Sheryl Shewman, Vice President of Business Development at U.S. Bank, and?Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed the types of incentive programs and how organizations can leverage them to maximize employee engagement. #payments #prepaid #incentives #rebates #rewards