What's New in Payments

Facebook Messenger to shutter its P2P payments service in UK and France

Facebook will scrap Messenger payments in the UK and France — Engadget — “Facebook will discontinue peer-to-peer Messenger payments in France and the UK on 15 June, the company told Engadget. ‘After evaluating how we give people the best experiences in Messenger, we made the decision to focus our efforts on experiences that people find most useful,’ Facebook said.”


What's New in Payments

WhatsApp Payments to launch in UK, Mexico and Brazil?

WhatsApp Payments reportedly coming to Mexico, Brazil, UK next — NDTV — “According to WABetaInfo, a prolific tipster of upcoming WhatsApp features, three countries — Brazil, Mexico, and [the] UK — will be getting WhatsApp Payments next… The service was introduced in beta in India last year but is yet to roll out to all users in the country because of regulatory hurdles.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook to offer WhatsApp payments in Africa?

Facebook in talks with banks about mobile payments in Africa — BusinessDay — “Facebook is in talks with financial institutions about possible mobile payment collaborations in Africa, says Carolyn Everson, a vice president at the social networking group… ‘We’re definitely interested in helping facilitate payments — it’s more of a 2020 roadmap for us than a 2019 one — but we’re having those initial conversations with some of the larger financial services companies.”


What's New in Payments

Apple Pay hits launch hurdles in India

After Amazon and WhatsApp, Apple orders ‘stop payment’ — The Economic Times — “Silicon Valley giant Apple has shelved plans to launch a Unified Payments Interface-based payments platform in India after landing in a regulatory grey zone that has stalled the full rollouts of similar products by Amazon and WhatsApp as well. Apple put the brakes on introducing Apple Pay in the country despite holding discussions with a few leading banks and the National Payments Corporation of India, which manages the UPI platform, said two people with knowledge of the matter.”


NFC World

Google rolls out Titan Security Keys with NFC

Titan Security Keys: Now available on the Google Store — Google — “In July, we announced Titan Security Keys, Fido security keys built with a hardware chip that includes firmware engineered by Google to verify the keys’ integrity. Starting today, Titan Security Keys are available for purchase on the Google Store… Security keys can be used to authenticate to Google as well as Dropbox, Facebook, GitHub, Salesforce, Stripe, Twitter, and other services that support Fido standards.”


Facebook approaches banks for Messenger bot banking

Facebook taps banks, but for chatbots not purchase data like Google — Techcrunch — “Account linking enables people to receive real-time updates in Facebook Messenger where people can keep track of their transaction data like account balances, receipts, and shipping updates… The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone — and it’s completely opt-in. We’re not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences — not for advertising or anything else.”


What's New in Payments

Apple Pay Cash gets top rating for P2P payments privacy and security

Why Apple Pay is the highest-rated mobile P2P payment service — Consumer Reports — “In our first-ever test-based ratings of P2P mobile services, CR rated Apple Pay the highest overall, with excellent or very good marks in the key consumer-protection measures of payment authentication and data privacy. Apple’s overall rating was significantly higher than for the other services we tested: Venmo, Square’s Cash App, Facebook P2P Payments in Messenger, and Zelle.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook patent sets out how AIs could accept Messenger payments

Processing payment transactions using artificial intelligence messaging services — USPTO — “One or more embodiments use natural language processing to analyze messages from the user to the messaging bot, and from the messaging bot to the user, to identify a product and a request to purchase the identified product. Based on the identified product and the request to purchase the product, one or more embodiments initiate a payment transaction on behalf of the user based on a natural language conversation and without redirecting the user away from the communications session.”


Citi to let customers check their bank account from within Facebook Messenger

Citi joins chatbot arms race, unveils Facebook messenger tie-up that will launch later this year — South China Morning Post — “Citi’s offering will be the first Facebook Messenger-embedded chatbot to let customers access their own financial records and potentially conduct transactions in future. It plans to roll out the service worldwide following its launch in Singapore in March.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook partners with major banks to roll out WhatsApp Pay across India

WhatsApp hastens payments push for 200 million Indians — Bloomberg — “Facebook Inc is set to offer its WhatsApp payment services to the whole of India as early as next week in an attempt to win market share, even though its partners aren’t all ready, said people familiar with the matter. The messaging app will partner with HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd and Axis Bank Ltd to process the transfers, and State Bank of India will join once it has the necessary systems in place.”



What's New in Payments

Instagram lets merchants take payments from within its app

Instagram quietly launches payments for commerce — Techcrunch — “Instagram just stealthily added a native payments feature to its app for some users. It lets you register a debit or credit card as part of a profile, set up a security pin, then start buying things without ever leaving Instagram… A tap through to the terms of service reveals that Instagram Payments are backed by Facebook’s Payments rules.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook to launch Messenger payments in India

Facebook ready to enter payments in India, begins beta with recharges on Messenger — FactorDaily — “Two sources in the know of the development told FactorDaily that Facebook has been quietly working on building a payments platform, which is independent of WhatsApp payments. ‘The platform will be separate from WhatsApp and will allow peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant payments,’ said the first source.”


What's New in Payments

Mastercard lets small businesses sign up for mobile payments via Facebook Messenger

Mastercard uses Facebook Messenger to help small businesses go digital — Mastercard — “To get started, businesses can send a request to the bot to enable QR payments, receive approval from the bank, set up an account and start accepting digital payments in a fast, simple and secure manner. Once the account setup process is complete, business owners can print and display the QR code in their stores or save the code on their phones… This Messenger experience will launch in Nigeria”


What's New in Payments

Over half of US consumers are now using a P2P payments service

US consumers and debit: Shift to online may inhibit use — Mercator Advisory Group — “57% of all respondents and 78% of young adults aged 18 to 34 use person-to-person payment services such as PayPal, Venmo, Google Wallet, Facebook Messenger, and others accessible online and in-app by mobile devices and nearly half of them use a P2P service at least once a month.”


US consumers ready to share purchasing data with financial services AIs

NTT Data study finds Alexa and Siri will drive the digital customer experience of the future for financial services firms — NTT Data — “Consumers are comfortable providing FSIs [Financial Services Institutions] with access to a wide range of data if it enables them to provide advice on spending, insurance products or coverages, or targeted financing options to meet their financial goals. 68% would share online retail purchase information, 61% would share geolocation information, 49% would share Uber, Lyft and OpenTable information, 42% would share Facebook and Twitter information.”


What's New in Payments

Samsung Pay to add social sharing features?

You may soon be able to share your Samsung Pay transactions — SamMobile — “Samsung has built a feature for Samsung Pay that allows users to view a list of all their past transactions and share them to various social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, according to a patent spotted on Kipris’ database. Samsung Pay Story, which the firm describes as a ‘system for sharing buying experiences,’ is expected to be introduced in a future update for Samsung Pay, in an attempt to spread awareness of the payment platform using social media.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook applies for patent for face recognition payments in stores

Facial recognition identification for in-store payment transactions — USPTO — “One or more implementations involve receiving a payment request to initiate an in-store payment transaction between a user and a merchant, the payment request including an image of the user. One or more embodiments identify a payment account for the user based on the image and send a payment confirmation request to a client device of the user. Additionally, one or more embodiments process the in-store payment transaction based on a confirmation response received from the client device.”


What's New in Payments

Facebook expands Messenger P2P payments to the UK

Facebook Messenger payments comes to UK — BBC News — “Facebook has chosen the UK as the first country outside the US to get its Messenger payments service… David Marcus, who runs Messenger, says it is obvious from our messages that we need this. ‘More and more people are having conversations on Messenger about paying one another,’ he explains. ‘As a result it’s a very natural place for you to have the most frictionless and secure way of paying each other.'”