Other Breaking News
In today’s CardFlash News Que: NEXTSUITE (GBT); SESAMES (awards); FIS (India); and NCR (Crotia).
Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor
Robert McKinley is an analyst of the payments industry on a daily basis for 32 years covering payment cards and payment systems from both the business side and the consumer side. McKinley is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. In his prior position, McKinley has participated in more than 10,000 documented news media interviews, testified as an expert witness in two separate $billion+ U.S. anti-trust trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, assisted the GAO with paymentsIMG_2006 (1).jpeg reports, chaired numerous business conferences and provided C-Suite opinion to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies. In retirement, he has continued developing and funding digital media assets as well as contributing payments related analysis/content to a broad list of online publishers, including CardFlash, CardTrak and CardData. McKinley is also a national certified mentor with the non-profit SCORE organization with a focus on assisting Fintech startups. www.robert-mckinley.com
Global Q1/15 GDV
Gross dollar volume (GDV) for Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards (credit + debit) globally rose 9.8% on a currency adjusted basis (FX). MasterCard led the pack with a 12.1% year-on-year (YOY) global GDV (FX) increase, according to CardData.
FDC Q1/15
First Data reported its Merchant Solutions segment revenue for Q1/15 was $888 million, up 4% year-on-year (YOY), adversely impacted by 1% due to the sale of Electronic Funds Source (EFS). Merchant acquiring revenue increased 6% YOY due to transaction growth and revenue from the Company’s merchant suite of solutions.
SEQR & Colruyt
All Colruyt Group stores in Belgium have begun accepting the mobile payment service SEQR. This includes close to 500 stores at Colruyt, Okay, Bio-Planet, Cru, Dreamland and Dream Baby and affiliated independent Spar stores.
Load & Go China
Australian Post and UnionPay International have launched the “Load & Go China” CNY and AUD UnionPay chip card. The new prepaid card is available at Australia Post’s more than 4000 outlets.
New Wallet App
New Wallet unveiled a new Apple Watch app which will alert you when your keys or wallet are left behind or lost. New Wallet is an all-in-one wallet phone case and key tracker.
Bitgold
A payments platform for gold is now out of beta testing and really to launch globally except in the USA. Toronto-based BitGold has unveiled the BitGold platform, a software service connecting free vault storage with payment networks.
Bitcoin Wallet
Rochester-based Case has introduced a bitcoin wallet which is the approximate size of a credit card. Case works with Celery to allow its users to exchange U.S. currency for bitcoin or bitcoin to U.S. currency.
Robert Wilkins
CardWeb.com’s CardExecs database of payments industry movers and shakers today features Robert Wilkins, Chief Executive Officer of Ziftr.
Predictive Analytics
Advanced predictive analytics delivered at various touch points in a true omni-channel solution is now a reality. Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions and SAS have come together to bring visualization and predictive analytics to the retail industry.
Virgin Australia Velocity Visa
CardWeb.com’s CardPixes database of more than 7,000 images today features the Virgin Australia Velocity Visa.
Zain & Boku
San Francisco-based Boku has buddied with MT2 to bring direct carrier billing to Google Play for Zain subscribers in Saudi Arabia. This benefit is particularly important in Saudi Arabia, where only 17% of consumers have a credit card and only 46% have any kind of bank account.