No more updating card details: Visa rolls out tokens online
New digital payments technology from Visa is set to significantly reduce ecommerce fraud, while removing a major consumer pain point – updating your details online every time you get a new card. The technology, called credential-on-file (COF) tokenisation, means that card details such as the 16-digit account numbers and expiry dates will no longer be stored online when consumers make a purchase. Instead, COF removes sensitive information from merchants’ systems and replaces it with a token, which is meaningless if stolen by fraudsters. Visa’s head of digital product and partnerships for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, Matt Wood, told The Australian Financial Review the tokens would be linked […]
Mint believes the future of payments is more rewarding, unveiling a bold new brand and vision.
Australian-based Mint Payments (ASX: MNW) has unveiled a new brand, new hires, and a bold promise to make payments more rewarding for merchants in the increasingly commoditised category. Following Mint’s announcement in April 2018 that it would increase focus on its Direct-to-Customer offering, the company commissioned a strategic deep-dive into the unmet needs and drivers of customers across its key verticals, including Hospitality, Travel, Retail and On-The-Go businesses. The work resulted in a new vision to create a different kind of payment experience — one that rewards customers, not just their business. Mint Payments’ Co-founder & Group CEO, Alex Teoh, said: “To help us design a richer Direct-to-Customer offering, we […]
Afterpay, Zip await ASIC critique of buy now pay later
An in-depth investigation into the often controversial buy now pay later industry by the corporate regulator that will assess whether new laws are needed to protect consumers will be made public in December, as new criticism is levelled at the model of local giant Afterpay Touch Group. Sources told AFR Weekend the Australian Securities and investments Commission was putting the finishing touches on its deep dive into the sector in readiness for a late-2018 release, after it came up against some delays. The regulatory review kicked off earlier this year, with the aim of determining whether the industry needed further regulation, whether customers were at risk of harm or were […]
The reasons Bitcoin is still first in the ranks
After a decade, Bitcoin is still ranked number 1 on the list of cryptocurrencies. No other coin has come close to taking its crown and reaching the level of the Bitcoin price. In fact, in 2018, it seems to be cementing its place at the top rather than slipping. We know that Bitcoin is just a protocol and that protocols can easily be copied and forked to create new cryptocurrencies. Many of those new currencies seem to have a technological advantage over Bitcoin. So what is it about Bitcoin that keeps it at the top? Bitcoin is Still Number 1 Despite everything that has happened, Bitcoin has retained over […]
Australia’s first next-gen digital bank is live
South-Melbourne based technology developer, Ferocia – presented the wide range of benefits this next-gen digital bank will offer customers.
CBA and Data61 join forces to create ‘smart money’
The Commonwealth Bank and CSIRO’s Data61 have joined forces to create “smart money” using blockchain technology, which has the potential to reduce fraud and revolutionise government programs such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In an initial proof-of-concept called Making Money Smart, the organisations have created programmable money by using smart contracts on a private blockchain, allowing conditions to be applied to the way the money is spent. CBA’s head of experimentation and blockchain, Sophie Gilder, told The Australian Financial Review the NDIS was a logical scheme to apply smart money to because of the number of rules, the scale and the lack of transparency and manual reconciliation that takes […]
Volt Bank signs PayPal deal to tackle customer inertia
Start-up Volt Bank hopes to tackle customer inertia in the banking sector by partnering with global payment giant PayPal to make the sign-up process easier. Under the deal, which is PayPal’s first partnership with an Australian company, Volt Bank will be able to tap into PayPal’s 7.2 million active user base in Australia to sign up customers using their PayPal account. This means PayPal customers will be able to use their existing personal data to skip a couple of steps when signing up to become a Volt Bank customer. The deal also means when Volt Bank issues debit and credit cards to customers they will be automatically linked to PayPal, meaning customers don’t […]
Ripple signs up three cross-border payment services
Three companies that provide cross-border payment services plan to use technology developed by startup Ripple that employs cryptocurrency XRP to speed transactions. Ripple, a large holder and promoter of XRP, said its platform for cross border payments, called xRapid, is now commercially available and that it had signed up firms Cuallix, MercuryFX and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union as clients. XRapid uses XRP, a virtual currency powered by distributed database technology called blockchain, to make international payments faster, according to Ripple. Mercury FX and Cuallix are money transfer companies, while Catalyst is a wholesale cooperative financial institution that provides a range of services to 1,400 credit unions throughout the United […]