Online Shopping 2014
Holiday online shopping hit a new high in 2014 says a new US/UK report, driven by three factors: greater convenience, better prices and ease of use. However, shipping remains the “Achilles’ heel” of online shopping.
LAC B2C E-Commerce
Latin America is the fourth largest region worldwide by B2C E-Commerce sales. Two of the emerging B2C E-Commerce markets in the region, Brazil and Mexico, rank among the top twenty countries by the size of the online retail market.
Card Complete JCB Card
The first JCB in Austria is being launched by card complete Service Bank. card complete is the leading Austrian market player with more than 1.3 million Visa and MasterCard cardholders.
FICO Patents
FICO has been awarded four new patents related to fraud detection and advanced analytics. FICO now holds 170 US and foreign patents, and has 93 pending patent applications.
Diners Club & Logic Group
Discover’s Diners Club International signed a deal to further grow Discover and Diners Club card acceptance in the UK and Europe. The contract with The Logic Group offers services based on supporting Omnichannel customer interactions whether managed payments or loyalty solutions and integrating these to provide customer insights.
Cortex MCP Board
MA-based mobile wallets specialist Cortex MCP has inked the former president and CEO of payment management company CyberSource for its board. Michael Walsh has an extensive background in the payments and technology industries.
Citi FICO
Following Discover and Capital One, Citi has begun delivering complimentary FICO Scores to Citi-branded consumer credit cardholders. Citi ended 2014 with 23.6 million U.S. bank credit card accounts.
Vodacom m-pesa VIsa
Gemalto has deployed prepaid EMV banking cards to complement Vodacom’s m-pesa mobile wallet service in South Africa. As a result, Vodacom becomes the first mobile operator to initiate the large-scale rollout of an EMV banking card that is accepted anywhere.
Cannabis Investments
While the banking industry is avoiding the emerging marijuana-related business, mainstream investors are preparing to jump in as it is expected to become legal in many more states within the next three years.
Synchrony & GPShopper
Synchrony Financial is plowing bucks into GPShopper, a developer of mobile apps with a focus on the retail industry. GPShopper’s solutions empower retailers to garner customer engagement and loyalty by bridging the online and in-store shopping experience with the use of mobile technologies.
King Cash
Americans still have an affinity for cash over credit cards. A new survey found respondents between ages 18-64 say they prefer cash/debit over all other forms of payment. Those 65+ prefer credit cards.
Retailers – EMV Ready?
The clock is ticking for the U.S. EMV migration deadline, but new research shows more than 50% of retailers not fully prepared as EMV deadlines approach.