The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:
Curbing friction
Panera Bread is adding technology to streamline the curbside pickup that many businesses are using to adhere to coronavirus restrictions.
One feature allows consumers to add information about their car to help deliverers, while another offers an "I'm here" button to avoid calling the restaurant to announce arrival. Another option is an opt-in geofence that automatically tells the restaurant the patron has arrived, avoiding all other steps.
Taking flight
Revenio Capital has led an investment of about $43 million in Fly Now Pay Later, a London fintech that provides digital payments for the travel industry.
The company applies the
Fly Now Pay Later will also use the investment to expand beyond its B2B model, offering a consumer version for vacation travel later this year.
Risk from home
The massive migration of bank employees to work-from-home arrangements is increasing the risk for payment fraud and other cyber theft.
The European Central Bank has issued a warning that asks banks to measure increased stress on processing systems and take steps to reduce vulnerability of remote access, reports
IT deficiencies in payments and financial services are among the top three risks for banks in 2020, the ECB says, recommending banks nominate more board members with IT risk experience.
Mobile whopper
Burger King is piloting a click-and-collect operation at about four dozen locations in the U.K. as part of a strategy to accommodate closed dining areas during the coronavirus outbreak.
The fast food chain is partnering with quick serve support firms Moto and QikServe to allow consumers to use a smartphone to browse menus, select a site and pickup time and pay for their order. The order can be picked up at a collection point or be delivered to the consumer's vehicle.
Moto, which has a network of quick service chains in its client base, such as KFC and Costa, hopes to expand beyond Burger King in future rollouts.
From the web
CNN | Mon May 18, 2020
The Treasury Department said Monday that it will start issuing some stimulus payments by sending a debit card to people in the mail.
CNBC | Mon May 18, 2020
PayPal has seen an older audience flock to digital payments as cash is seen as a germ risk and people across the U.S. stay at home. This cohort of “silver tech” helped PayPal’s total payment volume recover back to “pre-Covid” levels, CFO John Rainey said.
ZDNET | Mon May 18, 2020
The FBI says hackers are exploiting a three-year-old vulnerability in a Magento plugin to take over online stores and plant a malicious script that records and steals buyers' payment card data. Ideally, store owners should be updating their entire shops -- not just the MAGMI plugin -- to version 2.x, which will continue to receive security updates going forward.
More from PaymentsSource
The $43 billion deal was one of a series of payment mergers in 2019 that were designed to combine bank technology and merchant acquiring across multiple markets and industries while warding off ascendant fintechs offering fast access to digital payments and working capital.
This is the third halving, with each halving making a subtler economic impact than the last, says the University of Pittsburgh's Chris Wilmer.
In line with the other major card brands, Mastercard is extending its EMV liability shift at gas pumps to April 2021. It is also launching a data-driven fraud protection tool for fuel merchants who have not completed their upgrade to chip-card EMV pumps.
As the coronavirus crisis fuels even stronger demands for early earned wage access, Ceridian seeks to rise above the competition with its own on-demand digital wallet and prepaid Mastercard.
American Express Co. Chief Executive Officer Steve Squeri said a majority of the company’s employees will work remotely through the end of this year as it seeks to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The coronavirus pandemic has had an immediate impact on a wide swath of consumer spending habits and payment choices — some of which may remain in place for some time after the crisis subsides — as certain categories such as travel have fallen to the wayside and others such as grocery stores have risen as more consumers eat meals at home.
Difficult economic times are ahead. We don't know how difficult they’ll be, or how long they’ll last, but finance teams around the globe are bracing for them. Cash management and cost-cutting will be essential. Fraud protection—which is always a concern—will be even more important as criminals seek to capitalize on fear and confusion. If that wasn’t enough, companies have to support remote AP teams simultaneously.
At the Consensus 2020 virtual conference on May 11, European Central Bank board member Yves Mersch said the bank is focused on a retail central bank digital currency, or CBDC, that would be “accessible to all" and "would be a game changer.” None of more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies has yet made a dent in the mainstream as a means of payment, unit of account or store of value. They have, however, spurred central banks’ interest. Eighty percent of 66 central banks responding to a BIS survey are engaged in CBDC work. Ten percent are developing pilots.
