Visa has started to look beyond their core offering for additional revenue opportunities as the payments market heats up; “The...
Visa is making big changes to the rates that merchants pay to use their cards; the interchange rates will now...
Yesterday it was announced that Visa is planning to buy Plaid for $5.3 billion, double the valuation of Plaid’s 2018...
The U.S. Patent Office published a Visa patent application from November that would create a gateway to allow for central...
Since expanding globally in 2019 Visa has grown their Fast Track program to include more than 140 fintech companies; the...
TechCrunch has published the video from an interview with Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum; in the interview he talked about cryptocurrencies and blockchain, highlighting what makes a good use case for the technology. Source
Banks are starting to adopt voice assistants through Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home but don’t foresee wide adoption in 2018; Patrick Kelly, assistant vice president of emerging technologies at USAA tells TearSheet, “What Amazon Echo and Google Home are going to be is yet to be determined. That persona drives the user expectations of those devices. We’ll see them start to evolve next year and see what users expect.”; banks are currently still in the early stages of understanding how the technology will be used in everyday banking; one of the main issues holding back wider adoption is security and authentication. Source.
Banks of all sizes and core provider FIS have begun testing Amazon’s Alexa service to complete voice commands in banking; instead of customers logging into their banking app they would simply ask Alexa for a balance or to transfer funds; skills, as they are referred to, are constantly being refined as confusion over pronunciation still occur with the technology only being widely used in recent years; it is still early days for this type of technology to be used in a sophisticated way but the industry is showing that they are willing to test innovative ideas. Source.
The Volcker Rule was enacted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to prohibit banks from some of their riskiest activities; the rule is having a damaging effect when it comes to smaller banks who wish to work with fintech companies; according to the rule, banks cannot engage in proprietary trading and it limits banks from making investments in hedge and equity funds; smaller banks like community banks and credit unions don't have the resources of big banks to build out new technology so they look to partner with fintech firms; the limitations force these banks to invest in individual companies rather than funds who could potentially invest in a portfolio of companies; policy makers are looking toward Volcker Rule adjustments and the OCC recently signaled changes could be coming soon; while regulation has helped to curb abusive practices in financial services it would help to tailor legislation in a more specific fashion. Source
New financial app Vota is looking to help customers get a better handle on spending and use habits to build...