The Briefing on Payments
The latest news, trends and data in Payments
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In Data:
Payments News in Numbers
$4bn
PayPal has agreed a $4bn deal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey Science.
Founded in 2012, Honey works as a discovery tool for consumers to find savings while shopping. The platform can help track prices as well as provide rewards, offers and alerts.
The platform currently has a network of around 17 million monthly active users and 30,000 online retailers.
$120m
Nigeria-based payment and consumer platform OPay has raised $120m in a Series B funding round to support its expansion strategy.
The funding round involved participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia, Meituan-Dianping, Sequoia Capital China, DragonBall Capital, GSR Ventures, GaoRong Capital, IDG Capital, Source Code Capital, Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI) and Redpoint China.
$50m
Ripple has completed a $50m investment in money transfer services provider MoneyGram.
Ripple initially committed to the investment in MoneyGram in June of this year, when it pledged to invest $50m in total and made an initial payment of $30m.
$1bn
India’s Paytm has raised $1bn in a new funding round led by US-based T Rowe Price. The fresh funds bring the company’s valuation to nearly $16bn.
The equity financing round was also joined by Ant Financial, Softbank Vision Fund, and Discovery Capital, among others.
25.3%
The UK witnessed a 25.3% increase in the number of successful API calls being made from August to September, where the total reached 138.5 million.
Konsentus has launched an analysis tracker to monitor the progress of Open Banking across the European Economic Area.
Top Stories
The Key Moments in
Payments This Month
Pay UK rejects bank plan for Faster Payments levy for APP victims
Pay UK is rejecting calls by seven banks for a Faster Payments transaction fee to fund reimbursement of APP victims.
The failure to agree a consensus follows an industry-wide consultation.
ABN AMRO goes live with Temenos Payments platform
ABN AMRO has gone live with Temenos Payments in Hong Kong to power real-time payments and improve the customer experience.
Temenos Payments provides a single, global platform that enables ABN AMRO to expand and onboard new countries quickly.
Wells Fargo offers corporates real-time payments on RTP network
Wells Fargo’s corporate customers can now send real-time payments through the RTP network via an API. The result is the immediate transfer of money and expansion of Wells Fargo’s faster payments service.
Wells Fargo previously introduced capabilities for retail and wholesale customers to receive payments over the RTP network in late 2018.
Cardpay expands in Mexico
Payment processor Cardpay is expanding into the Mexican eCommerce market. Cardpay is targeting its Mexico payment solution to millions of unbanked customers and eCommerce businesses alike.
Through Cardpay, businesses can take payments using local payment methods accepted by popular retailers like Walmart, 7eleven, Superama and Extra.
Singapore’s Thunes secures remittance licence from MAS
Thunes, a cross-border payments network, has secured Monetary Authority of Singapore approval for payment services in the country.
The licence, contingent on procedural formalities, will enable the company to onboard customers from any industry onto its payments ecosystem.
Automation in Action
The latest companies to use AI to streamline their workforce
Pandora Automates 5% of Workforce
Music streaming service and Spotify rival Pandora has announced that it is laying off about 5% of its workforce in a bid to save around $45m a year. Jobs across several departments are being automated, including advertising, marketing and investment, as part of a wider restructuring to the company in a bid to maintain its presence in the streaming market.
Source: TechCrunch
Amazon Restructuring Sees Key Tasks Automated
Online retail giant Amazon has cut hundreds of jobs at its Seattle headquarters as the company reorganises to remove older departments and shift a growing number of tasks onto AI-based software. The company, which is enjoying strong growth, is reportedly restructuring to support future ventures, cutting some operating costs in the process.
Source: Time
Driverless Trucks Replace Oil Sands Jobs
Canada-based Suncor Energy has announced the layoff of several hundred workers as the company introduces autonomous haul trucks into its Alberta-based oil sands operations. The layoffs, which have prompted strong reactions from unions, are likely to be only the start, with Suncor planning to build a fleet of over 150 driverless trucks over the next six years.
Source: Global News
India Sees IT Layoffs in Tens of Thousands
Once one of the biggest employment sources in the country, India’s IT industry saw layoffs totalling over 56,000 in 2017, and is expecting to see further job cuts in the coming year. The layoffs have been largely due to digitisation and automation, which have dramatically reduced the number of workers required to maintain current operational levels.
Source: Quartz