Payments news stories in May 2016 were packed with reports about the SWIFT related hacks in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ecuador. While there is just one line below, i dedicated a complete SWIFT related hacks post to the various goings-on. Elsewhere, mobile payments went from strength to strength with the continued roll out of Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. Fintech and blockchain continued to hit the headlines as did bank branch closures. Check out the following top payments news stories for May 2016:
1. Payments News – Cyber Security
- Thieves stole almost $13 million from 1400 ATMs in Japan in under 2 hours
- Mary Jo White chair of the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) describes cyber security as the biggest risk to the financial system
- Kaspersky Lab warn about the use of Skimer, malware used to control ATMs to gather customer bank details and PIN codes and/or to steal money directly from the ATMS
2. Payments News – Mobile Payments
- Paypal halts business in Turkey after local regulatory agencies reject Paypal’s license application
- Barclays launches a contactless payments service for Android phones
- Swatch partners with Visa and Corner Bank Ltd to deliver Swatch Bellamy – a watch with an NFC antenna and a Visa contactless chip that will enable contactless payments
- Eurobank Poland enables host card emulation (HCE) based mobile payments
- 5 major banks will support Apple Pay in Singapore, representing 80% of Visa and MasterCard holders
- Pizza Hut restaurants across Asia will pilot MasterCard robot cashiers who will offer a range of in-store services
- Debit card to overtake cash usage in 2021 according to Payments UK
- Samsung Pay and AliPay team up in China
- The UK Payments Services Regulator (PSR) calls for greater transparency around card payment fees
- UK monthly contactless spend exceeded £1.5 billion, for the first time, in March 2016
- Android Pay is now available in the UK
- Google enhance Android Pay APIs to make it easier for developers to integrate Android Pay with their apps
- Following successful trials, Walmart Pay launches across Texas and Arkansas, with a national deployment planned by the end of June
3. Payments News: Digital / Crypto-currencies
- Ernst & Young in Australia prepares the sale of 24,518 bitcoins which had been confiscated as proceeds of crime in 2015
- MEPs recommend the EU Commission sets up a virtual currency taskforce
- Santander uses Ripple to enable cross border payments
- Goldman Sachs in their Profiles in Innovation series talk about 7 real world uses of blockchain, and outlines huge cost savings for banks
- Deloitte EMEA create a Financial Services Blockchain lab in Dublin
- Don Tapscott tells McKinsey how blockchains could change the world
4. Payments News: Banks
- Standard Chartered rolls out mobile and online banking across 8 countries in Africa, investing $1.5 billion in technology over 3 years
- ATMs in India to go chip and PIN by 30th September 2017
- BBVA partners with Red Hat to fast forward the banks global transformation
- Barclays reveal details of LaunchPad Business Challenge to use sandbox banking APIs and soundbox mobile banking app to improve their digital experience
- HSBC push digital banking and close half of their branches in India
- BBC figures reveal how over 600 bank branches have closed across Britain over the last year
5. Payments News: Fintech
- London law firm Simmons & Simmons creates a Fintech fund to help early stage fintech companies with legal problems
- Abu Dabhi prepares for a Fintech ecosystem with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between key parties
- A Fintech bridge between the Britain and Singapore is established
- Telefónica Germany with Fidor Bank launches O2 Banking – its own mobile banking service
- Rich Ricci (a former Barclays man) talks about the potential of fintech and how banks are lagging
- Canada to examine innovation in financial services by launching a FinTech market study
- PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, gives a speech at Hamilton’s commencement – sounds interesting, i will check it out…!
6. Payments News: SWIFT
- There have been so many SWIFT related headlines in May, that created a dedicated post: A News Bulletin Overview of the SWIFT Related Hacks
7. Payments News: Reports
- KPMG and CB Insights release the Pulse of Fintech, Q1 2016 – Global Analysis of Fintech Venture Funding report
- Greenwich Associates report on The Future of Banking: Digital SuperStores – outlining the ‘blurring of lines between banks and tech companies’
- Javelin release 2016 Mobile Banking Financial Institution Scorecard: Mobile Becomes the Remote Control for Banking
- Accenture report on How will the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) impact the European Payments and Banking industry?
That’s it folks! Let me know below if I missed anything important…