AmEx & Airbnb
American Express and Airbnb announce a first-of-its-kind tech integration that enables U.S. Card Members to quickly and seamlessly sign up for Airbnb and book stays at close to 2 million listings around the globe.
Other Breaking News
In today’s CardFlash News Que: AFFIRM (3dcart); SUMUP (mPOS); CREDITERA (Nav); and BUZZ POINTS (Kent’s).
MasterCard Send & BHTP
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) and MasterCard have teamed with Skift’s Global Travel Forum to drastically cut the time it takes to pay travel-insurance claims.
Visa Biometrics
The future has arrived as Visa introduced a new specification to use biometrics with chip card transactions. The specification can enable palm, voice, iris, or facial biometrics. This first-of-its-kind technology framework is designed to work with the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) chip industry standard to help ensure open, globally interoperable solutions.
Terbium & MapR
Terbium Labs, a security software company that proactively searches for stolen data on the Dark Web using a patented, privacy-protected, data fingerprinting technique, is using the MapR Distribution as the big data platform for Matchlight, a first-of-its-kind data intelligence system.
Sudheer Prem
CardWeb.com’s CardExecs database of payments industry movers and shakers today features Sudheer Prem, Chief Technology Officer of ID Insight.
MasterCard Send
MasterCard has launched a new disruption to the payments ecosystem with the launch of MasterCard Send. MasterCard Send is the only personal payments service that can reach virtually all U.S. debit card accounts and enable funds to be sent and received typically within seconds.
Apple Watch
Online pre-orders for the new Apple Watch begin today but there is already a back log of four to six weeks. Meanwhile, Coupons.com has developed the first-of-its-kind savings and digital promotions app for the Apple Watch.
Other Breaking News
In today’s CardFlash News Que: PROPAY (Quickbooks); COUPONS.COM (Apple Watch); 3PEA (PaySign); and SQUARE (email tool).
Cross-Border Impact
A first-of-its-kind study on Western Union sheds new light on the positive impact of cross-border money transfer broadly and of its services in particular. For example, each Western Union Agent location in the Philippines handles transactions that infuse enough funds into the local economy to create 85 non-Western Union jobs.
WeCareCard
The first-ever online fundraising platform tied to a prepaid debit card has been introduced by WeCareCard.
Transfast and Yes Bank offer NPCI Insta-Deposits
Transfast and YES Bank launched its instant money transfer service to banks. This service operates via the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) core platform. TRANSFAST is the first money transfer company worldwide to be live with NPCI’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) capability for international money transfers. This enables TRANSFAST customers to make instant deposits–both online at TRANSFAST.com and at agent locations–to Indian banks from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Instant transfers are available 24x7x365, even on holidays and during non-banking hours.