B2B market in Japan is ripe for development as it begins to tap into modern online payment methods. In the U.S., personalization is becoming a bigger part of overall B2B performance. In 2019, data breach was most hurtful to Capital One branding, blockchain platform Nuls was hacked, and Mastercard and RiskRecon team for all out war on cybercrime.
Senior Analyst Robert McKinley for CardFlash, CardData and CardTrak notes wannabe fintech unicorns need to build trust, and there is a growing consensus in late 2019 fintech challenger banks are not being built for the long haul, lacking survivable basic fundamentals.
Mastercard and Doconomy using the Åland Index, are experimenting with tracking the CO2 emission of every transaction. The G7’s International Panel on Artificial Intelligence has been given the finger, solely by the U.S. Banks are still being hit with overdraft fee abuse litigation, and by all indications will face a brutal time justifying nuisance, “what the market will bear,” banking fees under a different administration after 2021.
B2B
The B2B payment market in Japan accounts for $10 trillion dollars in annual volume but, like many markets, is still dominated by cash transactions. Only 1% of commercial payments in Japan are currently made via credit card and an even smaller fraction are made through technology such as bank transfers. The reliance on pre-internet solutions for commercial payments causes significant and measurable economic drag, with estimates ranging from $500 billion to $1 trillion in lost productivity and ROI to businesses. This should change as Paystand, a blockchain-enabled commercial payments platform, has entered into an initial agreement with JCB.
Thanks to better data analysis — including via machine learning and artificial intelligence, among other emerging technologies — personalization is becoming a bigger part of the overall consumer experience. That trend promises to get even bigger in 2020. As well, more personalization seems likely to come to the business-to-business (B2B) side of the equation. Part the push for B2B personalization comes from the fact that many B2B participants are simply getting younger, and are bringing their desires and expectations for personalization into the B2B realm, according to CardBuzz.
Cybercrime
From tech titans such as Facebook and Uber to traditional stalwarts such as Boeing and PG&E, many brands took a beating over recent months and will be limping into the new year. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has chosen 20 of the most challenged brands and 15 of the most critical issues impacting brand perception. Among the CMO Council’s list of most challenged brands: Capital One. Last summer, a hacker accessed personal information from 106 million credit card customers and applicants. A few months later, technical issues disrupted service and prevented customers from accessing their accounts, according to Bankcenter.
Blockchain platform Nuls has been hacked, losing almost $480,000 worth of NULS. Nuls said it had detected that 2 million tokens had been transferred, of which 548,354 tokens — worth roughly $131, 600 — had entered the trading market and were now untraceable. Nuls decided to hard fork the blockchain at block height 87,800. Hackers exploited a security vulnerability in the Nuls 2.2. version.
Mastercard inked an agreement to acquire RiskRecon, a provider of artificial intelligence and data analytics solutions to support companies in protecting their cyber systems and infrastructure. With RiskRecon’s pioneering scanning and evaluation technologies, organizations can proactively manage cyber risks, better safeguarding critical intellectual property and consumer and payment data.
FIntech
For a payment company or fintech to go from startup to global unicorn, you can’t borrow trust from someone else, you must earn it each and every day, and it must become part of the culture of your business. You can capture some of it in the form of deposits in an emotional bank account, but it is fragile and perishable, and it doesn’t have an unlimited shelf life. When it comes to trust, technology can present many fantastic new ways to build and sustain trust with customers.
Fintech challenger banks remain far short of conquest, and questions are beginning to arise among knowledgeable observers about whether the would-be conquerors are quite as formidable as predicted. That may seem like a bit of good news for the thousands of traditional financial institutions nervously glancing over their shoulders at the oncoming invaders. But there is a continued squeeze on legacy financial institutions — smaller institutions in particular — from trends hitting both sides of the balance sheet. The Fintech models at the moment are going to struggle to be profitable.
Payments & CO2
Doconomy and Mastercard extended their joint effort to combat climate change. Moving beyond previously announced programs, this new arrangement brings the ability for any Mastercard issuer to offer their cardholder the ability to track and understand their carbon footprint based on purchases made. The first bank in the U.S. and Nordea in the Nordics has joined The Bank of Åland in enabling clients to track and measure their CO2 impact through the Åland Index. Doconomy uses the Åland Index, a cloud-based software service, to track the CO2 emission of every transaction.
PayPal has acquired Honey Science Corporation for approximately $4 billion in cash. This transaction will transform the shopping experience for PayPal’s consumers while increasing sales and customer engagement for its merchants. Honey Science is an L.A.-based tech company with approximately 17 million monthly active users, Honey has helped millions of people find more than $1 billion in savings in the past year, according to Bankcenter.
The international body to study and steer the effects of artificial intelligence on the world’s people and economies hasn’t quite gotten off the ground. Six of the G7 are on board—with the United States the lone holdout. The International Panel on Artificial Intelligence plays a role in “addressing some of the ethical concerns facing this area.” It was to be modeled on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which helped establish consensus on the world’s climate crisis and recommends possible responses, according to CardBuzz.
A Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit claiming that RBC Bank (USA) improperly posted Debit Card Transactions from highest to lowest dollar amount to increase the number of Overdraft Fees charged to Account holders (“High-to-Low Posting”). The Settlement was reached with PNC Bank, successor in interest to RBC when the two banks merged. PNC maintains that there was nothing wrong about the posting process used by RBC and that no laws were violated. The Court has not decided which side is right.
Other Sources: CardData; RAM Research; CardTrak; CardFlash; PYRPTS; CardBuzz; Bankcenter; PYVNTS: Ruebud Media; Red3 Media
