Facebook Pay’s Expansion Plans Might Get No ‘Likes’ From Big Tech Rivals

The mobile wallet race officially became the mobile wallet war  last Wednesday, after Facebook announced plans to support the use of its Facebook Pay system on sites outside of its ecosystem. 

This first big step into the wider world of payments would have been less remarkable had it not involved Shopify’s 1.7 million merchants as its inaugural external test case. It was a move that gave the Facebook endeavor an immediate degree of credibility and surely caught the eye of wallet-space heavyweights like Apple, Google, PayPal, and more.

COVID-19 and its Impact on the Asia Pacific Commercial Credit Card Market

How did Covid -19 affect payments? 

Here we look at the impact of COVID-19 on the Asia Pacific commercial credit card market.

“TOP READS OF THE WEEK” (for week ending 16 July)

This week’s top reads in banking, fintech, payments, cybersecurity, AI, IoT, risk management and much more

In this weeks selection;

Top Reads

• NFTs - A hype or a lasting new investment asset class?
• CBDCs could give 'clean slate' for cross-border payments, BIS report says
• 'Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb says bitcoin is worth zero and fails as a currency and a hedge
• As SPAC Deals Fade, Banking And FinTech IPOs Step Into Listings Spotlight
• Visa rolls out BNPL for merchants
• PMorgan Suggests Adoption of Bitcoin as Legal Tender Might Break Bitcoin and Hurt El Salvador
• CFPB fines home improvement fintech GreenSky $2.5M, orders $9M in refunds
• China says measures applied to Ant Group to be imposed on other payment firms
• Iranian Hackers Posing as Scholars Target Professors and Writers in Middle-East
• Citi's Q2 profit jumps more than fivefold, but revenue slumps
• Want to quickly recover from ransomware? Plan ahead
• Wells Fargo charges ahead to $6B Q2 profit
• Bank of America's Q2 profit soars as low interest rates dent revenue
• JPMorgan's Q2 profit more than doubles amid slight drop in revenue
• Private credit joins private equity to freeze out banks
• Intuit's new Quickbooks card-reader joins the POS payments fray
• Behind the Firewall: How 6 security execs screen vendors

From our Blog

• Fintechs are becoming part of the establishment
• Using CBDCs for enhanced cross-border payments
• The end of Chinese Bitcoin mining
• Apple Working On 'Apple Pay Later' Monthly Installment Offering
• Non Fungible Tokens - a comprehensive overview

Fintechs are becoming part of the establishment

Fintechs are inexorably gaining critical mass: their value has risen to $1.1trn, equivalent to 10% of the value of the global banking and payments industry, and up from 4% in 2018. Prices may be stretched today and some firms may flop, but in the long run it seems likely that this share will only rise further.
Firms’ expansion plans and investors’ search for returns bring a blizzard of deals and listings.

What are the main trends? Who are the big players? Where is fintech heading?

Answers to this and more in The Economist's "Investment in fintech booms as upstarts go mainstream"

Using CBDCs for enhanced cross-border payments

Cross-border payments are usually criticized for high cost, low speed, limited availability to households and businesses and insufficient transparency, but recent technological advances could help mitigate those issues, according to a Bank for International Settlement report.

The report, entitled "Central bank digital currencies for cross-border payments," was published in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s committee on payments and market infrastructures.  It was prepared for the G20 group of nations' forum.

Get more information and access the full report HERE. 

The end of Chinese Bitcoin mining

The Chinese government's clampdown has forced most Bitcoin miners offline.

In May, a government committee tasked with promoting financial stability vowed to put a stop to bitcoin mining. Within weeks the authorities in four main mining regions—Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Xinjiang and Yunnan—ordered the closure of local projects.

China had accounted for about 65% of bitcoins earned through mining, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. But analysts think about 90% of its mining has now ceased.  

Read the full story "Deep in rural China, bitcoin miners are packing up" from The Economist. HERE

Apple Working On 'Apple Pay Later' Monthly Installment Offering

Apple is developing a perk for Apple Pay users that will allow them to buy products and pay for them in monthly installments, according to a Bloomberg report.