The payment company Unzer has expanded its business activities and launched its POS solutions in Austria and Luxembourg. With its iPad checkouts, card terminals, and the POS Go mini checkout, Unzer supports all merchants who want to digitize their processes and meet the growing demand for contactless payments. In Germany, Unzer already serves more than 40,000 merchants with its POS solutions.

Robert Bueninck, CEO of Unzer, explains: "We believe that customers want a seamless experience no matter where they shop. Merchants are focused on delighting their customers and shouldn’t have to worry about connecting their online and offline stores in one backend. That’s why we provide the software and hardware ensuring that all retail systems can communicate in real-time. With our POS solutions, merchants have a range of options simplifying their daily business life, from customer loyalty programs to real-time sales data."   

The Austrian and Luxembourg markets present substantial opportunities for Unzer's expansion. Austria, with approximately 30,000 restaurants and 140,000 retail and service businesses, and Luxembourg, albeit smaller but with an addressable market of 15,000 companies, both are robust economies with an increasing demand for contactless and mobile payments. Unzer's decision to penetrate these markets is the right step strategically and enabled by its established presence there. With offices in Vienna and Grevenmacher and a specialist sales team, Unzer’s POS solutions are set to cater to the nuanced needs of the Austrian and Luxembourg markets.

Unzer's cash registers and card terminals are designed for small and medium-sized companies seeking to accept mobile payments – whether in a restaurant, at an event, or in a store. The POS Go mini cash register is equipped with a card reader, receipt printer, and scanner and can be used flexibly anywhere thanks to cloud-based software. Popular payment options such as installment and invoice purchasing ("buy now, pay later") can also be offered directly at the point of sale. At the same time, retailers benefit from numerous additional functions such as digital accounting and storage of their receipts as well as real-time sales analyses.

As physical and virtual retail are increasingly merging, many merchants are looking for ways to interlink their channels. Unzer sees a unique opportunity to significantly increase its market share with its Unified Commerce offering, providing value-adding software services alongside payments to merchants in selected verticals. Over time, the company has cultivated a diverse product portfolio to ensure holistic coverage of the payment transaction industry – from online and in-person payments to advanced collection services and integrated commerce software.

Central to these innovative strides is the UnzerOne platform. It serves as a unified hub, seamlessly integrating sales, payments, and marketing functions across all touchpoints. Businesses benefit from an intuitive dashboard that provides direct access to real-time data, whether it is sales, inventory, orders, or customer preferences.

Robert Bueninck says: "With our holistic offering, we are well positioned to offer merchants in Europe real added value and gain market share. These are the best prerequisites for continuing or even accelerating our growth in the coming months and years.”

Temenos today announced that Nagarro, a global digital engineering leader, has signed an agreement to license and further develop Temenos Country Model Banks for financial institutions in Romania and Poland. The agreement opens new opportunities for growth for Temenos with enhanced local functionality and service capability provided by Nagarro in these markets.

Country Model Banks are a key differentiator for Temenos. Through such licensing agreements, Temenos can scale this competitive advantage with partners further developing and also building new model banks compatible with the banking solutions on Temenos’ composable platform and SaaS offerings on Temenos Banking Cloud.

Nagarro is committed to investing in and developing regulatory and business-specific localized functionality to enhance the Temenos Model Banks for financial institutions in Romania and Poland as part of this new agreement.

Nagarro, which has over 19,000 experts in 36 countries, has been operating in Romania since 1998 and in Poland since 2014 across 7 delivery centers. The Country Model Bank agreement enables Temenos customers in these markets to benefit from Nagarro’s well-established presence and regional expertise.

With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Nagarro supports the end-to-end banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) spectrum, including core banking, payments, lending and leasing, mobility and cognitive services, and financial services (investment banking, asset and wealth management).

This agreement builds on the strong existing relationship between the two companies, which has seen Nagarro complete more than 43 successful projects involving Temenos Transact implementation and transformation, along with 20 Temenos upgrades, and engage in 350 projects across diverse Temenos solutions. Nagarro was also awarded the ‘APAC Temenos Delivery Partner of the Year’ award in 2023.

Ross Mallace, EVP and Global Head of SaaS & Partner Ecosystem, Temenos, said: “We are excited to announce this agreement with Nagarro, which opens new opportunities for Temenos with financial institutions in Romania and Poland. Nagarro will become a trusted partner for the development and maintenance of Country Model Banks for these two countries and help customers in their progressive technology renovation. Such agreements bring additional value to our platform, which benefits our clients and ultimately delivers incremental growth for Temenos.”

Vishwanath Rajashekarappa, a co-founder, Nagarro, commented: “We are delighted to be granted this license by Temenos to develop Country Model Banks to drive growth and customer success. This agreement is a testament to our capabilities as a long-standing partner of Temenos and our knowledge of local market practices and regulations. We look forward to helping clients in Romania and Poland scale and optimize their businesses on the Temenos banking platform.”

Visa, a world leader in digital payments, spotlighted the evolution of its dispute program, making it easier for merchants to fight first-party misuse, also known as friendly fraud or first-party fraud, for card-not-present transactions. This change could save small businesses over a billion dollars in losses globally over the next five years, in turn benefitting the entire ecosystem of consumers and merchants.

“Visa is committed to facilitating safe and secure transactions, and in response to an increase in first-party fraud, we have made necessitated changes to limited aspects of our dispute process to give small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the tools that they need to ensure they receive the payments they have rightfully earned through legitimate transactions,” said Ms. Dung Dang, Visa Country Manager for Vietnam and Laos. “While we stand with our small merchant partners in the fight against fraud, at the same time, Visa also remains steadfast in our dedication to protecting Vietnamese consumers from fraud, including our zero-liability commitment to cardholders for unauthorized transactions.”

The rule change gives merchants more ways to show if a disputed charge is valid and authorized, helping business owners keep money that is rightfully theirs, while protecting legitimate cardholder activity.

The impact of first-party fraud can be devastating for small businesses. “This rule change is going to be a gamechanger for my business," said Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tong, Business Director, Tam Slife, which operates 16 Fitness and Yoga centers in Ho Chi Minh City. “I have been in tough situations where legitimate membership charges have been disputed. If I lose the dispute, not only do I have to refund the membership fee, I also need to pay for other dispute compensations. This change will help ensure I have a fair shot during those disputes.”

“We applaud Visa’s new initiative that empowers Vietnamese businesses, especially SMEs and household businesses, with the tools they need to fight for rightfully earned payments,” said Mr. Tran Van Trong, General Secretary, Vietnam E-Commerce Association (VECOM). “As a fast-growing economy, Vietnam faces growing threats from first-party fraud, which can be particularly devastating to SMEs and household businesses as they have limited expertise in financial management. In bolstering its safeguards against fraud, Visa is giving small businesses the opportunity to flourish and secure payment from legitimate transactions.”

PayPal Holdings, Inc. today announced six innovations the company is piloting and bringing to market this year to revolutionize commerce through artificial intelligence (AI) driven personalization for both merchants and consumers. During the PayPal First Look keynote, Alex Chriss, President and CEO, introduced: a completely new PayPal checkout experience that radically speeds up checkout for consumers and helps merchants convert transactions like never before; Fastlane by PayPal, a dramatically faster and smarter guest checkout experience; Smart Receipts, giving customers AI-personalized recommendations from merchants to keep them coming back; the PayPal advanced offers platform so merchants can provide relevant, personalized, real-time offers to consumers and drive more sales; a reinvented PayPal consumer app giving shoppers new ways to earn cash back and more reasons to use PayPal; and, Venmo's enhanced business profiles, so small businesses can find and engage new customers, and grow their businesses.

"PayPal is on a mission to revolutionize commerce, globally, and today we are starting the next chapter," said Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal. "With nearly 400 million consumer accounts, and 35 million merchant accounts, PayPal handles transactions for about a quarter of the world's e-commerce transactions each year, but more importantly, shoppers trust PayPal to power their payments."

Chriss continued, "PayPal is introducing six new innovations that will not only solve real customer pain points, but we believe will change the world of payments and commerce. From new solutions for merchants to speed up checkout and personalize offers, to a new consumer app that will give our loyal customers more reasons to shop with PayPal, to the next generation of Venmo designed to be the growth platform for local small businesses, PayPal has always brought the future of money to our consumers and merchants and today marks the next revolution."

With digital commerce expected to exceed $6 trillion in 20241, merchants need new, advanced ways to speed consumers through checkout in a seamless way that reduces lost sales. Additionally, consumers are continuously looking to stretch their budgets and get as much value while shopping as possible. PayPal's global scale and extensive data set, combined with the power of AI, will deliver the next generation of value for both consumers and merchants.

Transforming Checkout

Checkout is the last interaction between a consumer and a merchant, and while it seems so simple, any friction can disrupt the moment. Business owners want to focus on the next sale and consumers are looking to remove any annoying interruptions like password prompts or lagging response times. To address this, PayPal has massively accelerated the checkout process to get customers to choose PayPal, integrated passkeys to enable customers to log in with their face or fingerprint with one tap, and improved latency. This will reduce latency by as much as 50%, and enable customers to check out twice as fast, all with the same level of security and trust they have come to expect from PayPal. Additionally, the new PayPal checkout will also leverage AI to get smarter and faster over time.

Introducing Fastlane by PayPal

Merchants are losing out on sales because the guest checkout process is both slow and cumbersome. Additionally, shoppers do not often sign in or sign up while browsing, and when they are ready to check out, they must find their password, and update their credit card information, or shipping address. To help, PayPal is introducing Fastlane by PayPal, a new one-click guest checkout experience that merchants using PayPal's platform will be able to offer their shoppers, allowing them to make a fast and painless purchase. Customers simply save their information with Fastlane to check out in as little as one tap. No username or password to remember, no personal information to update, and no need to share a credit card with businesses all over the web.

PayPal has been piloting Fastlane by PayPal with a group of merchants and is seeing astounding early results. Select merchants on BigCommerce, a leading open software-as-a-service (SaaS) e-commerce platform and longtime PayPal partner, have seen early results showing that Fastlane can recognize 70% of guests and accelerated checkout speeds of nearly 40% compared to a traditional guest checkout process.

Introducing PayPal Smart Receipts

Merchants want to incentivize customers to come back, and consumers want to find the best deals, so PayPal is eliminating the guesswork for both with the introduction of Smart Receipts. When consumers shop with PayPal, they will receive a receipt that allows them to not only track their purchase but also harness AI to predict what they may want to buy next from that merchant. As a result, now merchants will be able to include a personalized recommendation along with a cashback reward offer on the receipt.

As almost 45% of PayPal customers globally open their email receipts every day – an incredible open rate – this could mean tens of millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of consumers seeing timely, hyper-relevant recommendations and rewards in these receipts. This increases the opportunities for merchants to re-engage directly with their customers, increasing the probability of repeat shopping and business growth.

PayPal is also leveraging AI-powered suggestions that are based on shopper behavior data, combined with the scale of what PayPal can see across the web. Through personalized AI, PayPal is giving any sized merchant the power of being one of the largest retailers in the world.

Introducing PayPal Advanced Offers Platform

Today, when consumers shop online their experience includes ads generated by their browsing behavior only, which can be irrelevant and frustrating. In response, PayPal will use unique customer insights to build a dynamic, truly personalized advanced offers platform giving merchants the ability to reach customers based on what they have actually bought across the internet, down to the stock-keeping unit (SKU) and the individual product. This new, performance-based offers platform has the potential to use AI to organize and analyze data from nearly half a trillion dollars' worth of merchant transactions globally6. The platform will also allow merchants to customize offers for customers, and merchants will only pay for performance, not impressions or clicks. For PayPal consumers, it means they will get more relevant offers, and more opportunities to earn rewards.

PayPal is also building transparent, easy-to-use privacy controls so if a customer does not want their data shared with merchants to personalize their shopping experience – they can opt in or out. 

Reinventing the PayPal app

PayPal is also reinventing the PayPal app to give loyal customers even more reasons to shop and pay with PayPal every day. Too often consumers are served the top items from the largest merchants that can afford to buy the best search terms. Additionally, consumers are still feeling the inflationary pinch and looking for ways to spend smarter and find the best deals. This is why PayPal is introducing CashPass to give customers access to hundreds of exciting, personalized cash-back offers from top brands in the U.S. A user will simply need to tap on the offer, shop at that business, and check out with PayPal. CashPass uses AI to organize personalized offers for customers based on shopping behaviors, and customers will regularly discover new cash-back offers giving them more reasons to visit the app.

Starting in March, PayPal is planning to launch CashPass with an amazing set of launch partners, so consumers can access offers from merchants such as Best Buy, eBay, McDonald's, Priceline, Ticketmaster, Uber, and Walmart.

PayPal CashPass users will also be able to stack with other PayPal rewards such as cashback from the PayPal Cashback Mastercard®. Users can then put cash back into a PayPal Savings account and earn more on top.

Introducing the Next Generation of Venmo Business Profiles

Venmo introduced business profiles in 2021 to provide an affordable and easy way for businesses to accept payments and grow their business and has grown to a community of more than 90 million active accounts. Small businesses rely on word-of-mouth, social media, and reviews on other sites for referrals. It can be difficult to stand out on social media, and one bad review can set their business back. Venmo is solving this by introducing enhanced Venmo business profiles to help small businesses be discovered like never before. The next evolution of business profiles will add subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and the ability to offer promotions to consumers, bringing powerful new ways for businesses to drive traffic, generate sales, and more meaningfully grow their business through increased visibility in the Venmo app.

Consumers will be able to discover top-ranked businesses endorsed by their network and enjoy cashback deals when supporting local businesses in their community. No other mobile payment service has a social feed as active, useful and as personal as Venmo, and this is a revolution in providing real-time offers and promotions at a hyper-local level for small businesses. The same type of privacy controls will be available on Venmo, as on PayPal.

All of these new experiences will begin rolling out in the United States throughout 2024.

FIFA is delighted to announce the extension of its partnership with Visa, a world leader in digital payments, as an official FIFA partner. The new agreement, which runs through 2026, enables Visa and FIFA’s efforts to champion the growth of football and support players, fans, and clients through an exciting program of youth, beach soccer, and FIFAe events, and will culminate in the biggest FIFA World Cup™ in history in 2026.

FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, said: “FIFA is thrilled to partner with Visa and to focus our strong partnership on what will be a very bright future. Visa’s unwavering commitment to enhancing the fan experience, coupled with its innovative approach to payment technology, aligns with FIFA’s vision to make football truly global and accessible to all. We look forward to delivering exceptional moments for fans across the globe.” Visa will remain the Official Payment Technology Partner for FIFA activities globally, providing a seamless and secure commerce experience for FIFA’s passionate fans on-site. Visa cardholders will receive exclusive and behind-the-scenes access throughout FIFA tournaments, Visa-cardholder pre-sale events, and other innovative promotions, including at FIFA stores and online at FIFAstore.com, throughout the partnership.

Global digital asset banking group Sygnum today announced that it has raised more than USD 40 million against an initial ~USD 35 million target in an interim close of its latest funding round, which is named the Strategic Growth Round. As of the completion of this interim close, the company’s post-money valuation stands at USD 900 million.

Global asset management group Azimut Holding is the lead investor for the round and are joined by other new and existing strategic and financial investors. Consistent with prior fundraising rounds, the Strategic Growth Round also saw Sygnum employees participating as personal investors on the same terms. Sygnumers, together with the co-founders, board members and management team continue to hold majority ownership of the company.

Proceeds from this financing round will be used to expand Sygnum’s geographic reach into new markets and accelerate the development of Sygnum’s fully regulated products such as its B2B (bank-to-bank) platform, which now powers the crypto offering of over 15 banks and financial institutions globally. In April 2023, Sygnum announced a partnership with PostFinance, one of Switzerland’s largest retail banks, to bring a range of bank-grade digital asset services to millions of Swiss customers. In November 2023, Sygnum Singapore inked a deal with the Singapore arm of 174-year-old private bank Bordier & Cie, expanding an existing partnership that began in 2021 in Geneva.

Since its last successful Series B fundraise, Sygnum’s assets under administration have grown to over USD 4 billion, with a client base of over 1,700 from more than 60 countries. To support the company’s increasing client activity and operations, the group continued to grow its global team through the “crypto winter”, now nearing 250 team members. Outside of Switzerland and Singapore, the group is also licenced to operate in the UAE and Luxembourg.

Giorgio Medda, CEO of Azimut Holding says: “We are pleased to have led Sygnum’s Strategic Growth Round fundraising at this topical moment when the demand for well-regulated, institutionalised services in crypto looks set to surge in 2024. Sygnum has been a Group key partner since 2021 as, first in Europe, we have developed together the first tokenisation of a private credit portfolio to benefit our alternative investment funds asset allocation. From the beginning, we have appreciated the team’s expertise and high degree of innovation. We strongly believe in the evolution of technology and its positive impact on the investments industry, so we are delighted to contribute to the growth of Sygnum in a round that strengthens its position as a leading financial institution in the digital asset sector.”

Mathias Imbach, Co-Founder and Group CEO says: “Closing a successful funding round in this macro environment with such strong partners is exciting, and we are thankful for our investors’ trust in us. Our core thesis has always been that Future has Heritage, and our strategy to build trust via regulation and good governance has guided us throughout all market cycles. We look forward to continuing to empower everyone everywhere to own digital assets with complete trust.”

Gerald Goh, Co-Founder and CEO Singapore adds: “This fundraising round is testament of Sygnum’s strong and unique position as a leading regulated financial institution in the global digital asset industry. The broader industry is emerging from the ‘crypto winter’ and investors and market participants are increasingly seeking to partner with trusted and well-managed financial institutions. For Sygnum, this fundraise will allow us to further build out our suite of fully regulated solutions to support investors as they increase their exposure to the asset class.”

ServiceNow , the leading digital workflow company making the world work better for everyone, announced today a five-year strategic alliance with Visa, a world leader in digital payments, to transform payment services. The initial phase includes the launch of ServiceNow Disputes Management, Built with Visa - a single, connected dispute resolution solution for issuers.

Managing disputes currently involves multiple systems and teams, and many financial institutions often use siloed solutions that are not fully integrated. This disconnected approach creates complexity, delays crediting and resolving disputes, can create potential losses, and ultimately, impacts the customer experience. ServiceNow Disputes Management, Built with Visa is a streamlined solution that blends the best of ServiceNow’s AI-first platform and the company’s Financial Services Operations solution with Visa’s deep technology investments. Each year, Visa helps prevent $30 billion in fraud for consumers and small businesses using cutting edge technology, including tokenization and AI, deployed throughout the entire payments ecosystem, including dispute management.

“At the heart of our alliance is a commitment to build industry-leading products that help financial institutions boost employee productivity, create great customer experiences, and drive business growth,” said John Ball, senior vice president and general manager, customer and industry workflows, ServiceNow. “By making Visa’s services available through ServiceNow’s intelligent, AI-first platform, we’re powering innovation and setting a new standard in the payments industry.”

“Solving customer pain points is core to our business at Visa, and collaborating with an industry leader like ServiceNow will allow us to help issuer partners resolve disputes more efficiently,” said Vanessa Colella, global head of innovation and digital partnerships, Visa. “ServiceNow and Visa look forward to offering clients the latest technology solutions, so they can focus on delivering an excellent experience for their customers.”

ServiceNow Disputes Management, Built with Visa will unite the entire dispute management process – from the first indication that a charge is questionable to early resolution, investigation, and final resolution. It includes a single experience for solving disputes so that employees can have high-quality engagements with cardholders, as well as dashboards, automation, alerts, and the ability to audit all transactions.

Two standout features enhance its efficiency: a modern, user-friendly low code platform that allows financial institutions to make swift updates to their dispute management process, and generative AI-powered experiences that improve customer intake and agent investigation. The solution also incorporates ongoing changes to dispute rules and applies industry best practices for processes, workflows, and staying ahead of fraud.

“Banks should prioritize their CX efforts around the drivers that most influence customer loyalty. For example, resolving problems and issues quickly remains one of the most important drivers of CX and retention for many banks,” wrote Alyson Clarke, principal analyst at Forrester Research. “Banks that adopt modern and flexible digital banking processing platforms will find it easier and faster to deliver innovative (and profitable) customer solutions.”

ServiceNow is committed to revolutionizing financial services with new products and services. This initial integration marks the beginning of a more extensive, multi-phased relationship between Visa and ServiceNow. The companies will continue to build new solutions and will distribute Visa products and services to joint customers. Together, ServiceNow and Visa will help clients improve dispute management.

"There is a solid demographic reason for this: rising economies have a young and growing population, contrasting developed regions. In addition to the demographic and economic push, rising economies largely benefit from digitization," states Paula Bellizia, President of Global Payments at EBANX. "The digital revolution has been disrupting industries and unlocking opportunities for both local and global players, from verticals spanning from SaaS, digital ads, and B2B online trade, to gaming, streaming, social media, and e-commerce. And payments have been the backbone of this growth," she added. 

It is interesting to observe how the innovation brought by alternative payments is improving the whole ecosystem, and impacting cards as well – including debit ones – which remain steady and keep playing an important role in the digital economy as account ownership surges in rising markets. "Cards and alternatives are learning from one another, absorbing features from one another, paying attention to the needs of merchants and consumers," Bellizia noted. Combined, credit and debit cards represent 51% of digital commerce value in Brazil, 66% in Mexico, and 75% in Chile, according to PCMI data in Beyond Borders. In India, cards account for 43% of the value of online transactions; and the high penetration goes to African nations as well: in Morocco, 42%; in Nigeria, 36%. "A payments strategy for rising markets needs to consider a balance between cards and alternative payments, adapted to specific countries, verticals, and business models, centered in offering the best payment experience to customers, enabling them to pay with their method of choice. This fosters true access," she added.