Morning Brief 7.9.20: Amex, SAP Concur team to digitize B2B payments

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:

Sending a bill

As businesses rush to digitize transactions with most of their workers out of the office, American Express has turned to SAP Concur in an effort to strip paper out of invoices and corporate expense management.

Amex and Concur will use machine learning to integrate paper and electronic invoices into a single system. The two companies will also offer digital expense reporting, enabling Amex business card payments to flow directly into Concur's expense management.

Amex is specifically targeting accounts payable and procurement, which are struggling as many firms adjust to having these traditionally office-bound functions migrated to home offices.

Bloomberg News

Subscription tweets

Twitter is reportedly hiring a team to build a subscription platform called Gryphon to augment its ad sales and data licensing revenue.

The engineers would work with Twitter's payments team, reports The Verge. Twitter's posting says the engineer will manage payment and subscription client work.

Twitter earlier examined offering subscriptions for analytics, breaking news or information about followers' tweets but did not go forward with the project, according to The Verge.

Saudi deal

Discover and the national Saudi Payments system have entered partnership designed to add more digital payment options and enable Saudi citizens to access more merchants outside of Saudi Arabia.

The deal allows Discover, Diners Club International, PULSE and network alliance cardholders to use ATMs, e-commerce and physical point of sale in Saudi Arabia, totalling 470,000 payment terminals and 18,000 ATMs.

It will also enable payments at 48 million outlets in more than 200 countries, as well as access to Discover's online merchant network. The government has set a goal of cutting cash to 30% of the country's payments by 2030.

Gaming cash

Social video analytics company Channel Meter has launched Creator Cash, an iOS and Android app designed to support payments to content creators on YouTube.

The app includes a debit card, access to social analytics and financial tools to manage campaign revenue and relationships with people who sponsor creators' activity.

The card follows the release of Karat, which also offers a payment card for online gaming and artistic creators to manage expenses. Other firms such as Patreon offer a platform to connect independent creators to their sources of funding, processing payments and providing the back end for creators to offer incentives to their supporters.

From the Web

Exclusive: Alibaba's Ant plans Hong Kong IPO, targets valuation over $200 billion, sources say
REUTERS | Wed July 8, 2020
Ant Group, the fintech arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, plans a Hong Kong float as soon as this year and targets a valuation of more than $200 billion, said two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Can Visa Join the $1 Trillion Market Cap Club?
THE MOTLEY FOOL | Wed July 8, 2020
Given Visa's recent growth and the opportunity in front of it, Visa joining the trillion-dollar market cap club seems more like a "when" than an "if."

Mastercard launches Shop Openings tool that allows customers to identify nearby stores that are open
CNBC | Wed July 8, 2020
Mastercard partnered with data analysis company Sixth Sense to launch ShopOpenings.com in the U.S. and Canada. This new online search tool allows you to confirm which stores and businesses are open to customers and if they accept contactless payments.

More from PaymentsSource

A scattered workforce creates ample targets for cybercrime
With a growing number of new applications integrated into the fabric of banking and financial services businesses, security throughout the system becomes a critical success factor, says White Hat Security's Craig Hinkley.

How EMV has grown beyond the chip on a card
The role of EMVCo — which is often seen as an extension of the card brands that deals only with chip-based EMV plastic cards— has come into sharper focus.

Card networks’ buy button goes global as competitive threats rise
At a time when many have shifted to digital payments to weather the coronavirus pandemic, the four main U.S. credit card brands are aggressively expanding their own take on digital commerce.

Earned wage access provider Wagestream raises £20 million for market share expansion
Fueling its market expansion, U.K. earned wage access startup Wagestream has raised £20 million (about $25 million) in a Series B fundraiser from several VC firms.

Cash will remain popular after the outbreak, but only in a few places
Even after the coronavirus outbreak ends, the payment needs and preferences of global consumers will still vary from country to country. In fact, they will be more diverse than ever. Still, a global trend has been the accelerated shift from traditional cash and card payments toward digital payment methods at the point of sale.

A blockchain project builds a layer of security to cover all currencies
As a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who helped launch Stellar and Dogecoin, Marshall Hayner has long been interested in finding a way to use blockchain — the digital ledger technology originally developed for Bitcoin — to solve some of the data privacy issues relating to payments.

Exclusive survey Financial services industry struggles to emerge from lockdown
Almost six out of 10 employers report that their plans for the return to work are stymied by uncertainty — specifically, a lack of clarity on the right timing, and persistent questions about how to provide a safe environment for their employees.

Putting data first can solve the omnichannel puzzle
Collecting the right data and understanding the nuances to which channels customers are using and why, can go a long way in delivering experiences that customer loyalty is built on, says Adobe's Mark Masterson.

A blockchain project builds a layer of security to cover all currencies
As a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who helped launch Stellar and Dogecoin, Marshall Hayner has long been interested in finding a way to use blockchain — the digital ledger technology originally developed for Bitcoin — to solve some of the data privacy issues relating to payments.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER