The popularization of mobile phones with biometric sensors together with technological advances for mobile payments has revolutionized the world of online transactions. The FIDO Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among these types of strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords.

 Visa invited start-ups to compete in the company’s second annual The Everywhere Initiative. In partnership with start-up ecosystem company, KITE, Visa is posing three real-life business challenges to the start-up community to create innovative solutions that solve Visa business problems and drive the future of commerce. The selected winner of each challenge will receive $50,000 to be used towards the real-world production of their solution and mentorship from Visa marketing, product and technology teams over a year-long period to help bring their solutions to life.

WEX  announced that WEX Australia has updated its existing agreement with Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), one of the world’s largest travel agency groups, to provide virtual credit card payments for its retail stores.

In the last business continuity blog we talked about the three phases of Business Continuity Planning (BCP)--Emergency Response Action Plan, Disaster Recovery Plan, and Business Continuity and Continuance. We also discussed NOT chasing scenarios but rather planning for loss conditions--loss of personnel, loss of facilities, loss of services, and loss of access.

 Tipalti's SuiteApp has achieved ‘Built for NetSuite’ status. The new SuiteApp, built using NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Platform, integrates with NetSuite OneWorld to provide one unified Accounts Payable Automation solution, helping finance departments streamline their entire global supplier payment operation.  

To enhance speed the adoption of blockchain for business, IBM announced a new framework for securely operating blockchain networks, as well as new services on the IBM Cloud that are designed to meet existing regulatory and security requirements.

SmartDX, from the Smart Communications division of Thunderhead announced that Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region, with over 3.5 million customers, has selected SmartDX to manage their derivative trade confirmation processing. SmartDX is the industry standard for automating trade and relationship document generation and negotiation in the Capital Markets.

The FinTech world is buzzing about PSD2. Should banks be worried?

European banks are finally realizing the magnitude of the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), which will force them to provide account information to third parties via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that cut out transaction intermediaries.

PSD2 aims to:

Remitly closed a $38.5 million Series C funding round. Stripes Group led this round and was joined by Vulcan Capital, both new investors in Remitly. Existing Remitly investors also contributed to the round including DFJ, DN Capital, Bezos Expeditions and Trilogy Equity Partners, among others. Stripes Group partner Ron Shah will join Remitly’s board of directors as part of the financing. The new capital will be used to grow Remitly’s team and continue the company’s global expansion.