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A bigger threat to the fintech quartet could come from giants in adjacent sectors. Big-tech firms are starting to beef up their own payment apps. Large retailers like Walmart and Target are building their own acquirers and wallets, through which they could give rewards to loyal customers.

 

From Scaling the peak – America used to be behind on digital payments. Not any more | Finance & economics | The Economist.

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Finally, what is Walmart’s competitive advantage in financial services? Its huge customer base, many of whom are rural and on modest incomes. Many of them will be unbanked or underbanked. These people don’t need particularly whizzy tech. They need deposit services and credit.

So what makes sense is for Walmart to offer core banking services, even if they do it through their web app rather than with bank branches within box stores. A low-cost debit card which allowed customers to take advances on their next pay cheque, a wholly-owned credit card and unsecured personal loans would all make sense.

From Why Walmart is betting on banking | Financial Times:

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Citigroup got it right on one call: Walmart wants to be a super app. As I wrote in an article titled Walmart’s Fintech Ambition: A Super App, Not The ‘Bank Of Walmart’ in March 2021:

“Walmart’s super app opportunity is a lot bigger than just integrating and digitizing its financial services business or deploying its self-service advertising platform for Walmart partners to manage digital ad campaigns.”

The super app opportunity includes integrating Walmart’s: 1) Shopify marketplace; 2) Connect ad platform; 3) health centers; 4) existing investments in eCommerce, logistics, supply chain, and inventory management; and 5) other product and services not currently affiliated with Walmart.

From Walmart’s Money Card Plays A Small Role In Its Quest For Retail Domination:

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In order to pre-empt the threat of competition, the digital-payments firms are expanding their offerings. PayPal has launched buy-now-pay-later, cryptocurrency-trading and credit-card services. On March 8th it said it would buy Curv, a digital-asset-security firm; it bought Honey, a coupon service, last year. It says it wants to become a “super-app” for financial services, and in February told investors it expected to more than double its revenue to $50bn by 2025. Square’s peer-to-peer payment business, Cash App, has evolved into a digital bank enabling users to buy bitcoin, trade stocks, receive paycheques and use a debit card. It now has 36m users, up from 7m in late 2017, and brings in 45% of Square’s gross profit. Stripe has started offering working capital and accounts to merchants, in partnership with banks.

From Scaling the peak – America used to be behind on digital payments. Not any more | Finance & economics | The Economist.

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Over half of digital-transaction volumes worldwide are still acquired by the captive, sluggish arms of banks, says Lisa Ellis of MoffettNathanson, a research firm. Since most lack global aspirations and e-commerce expertise, market share is bound to migrate to the online giants.

From Scaling the peak – America used to be behind on digital payments. Not any more | Finance & economics | The Economist.

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One 14-year-old boy from Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, said a number of Chinese firms put together online teams that operate within the crowded Telegram channels, which have names like “Free Product Amazon Reviews”.

These intermediaries seek out people willing to buy the products on Amazon they want promoting and once positive reviews go online, the purchases are reimbursed via paypal.

The boy said intermediaries like him are paid between 2.0-2.5 euros ($2.37-$2.96) per write-up they commission, enabling him to make between 300 and 400 euros per month. “That isn’t bad at my age for answering a few chats,” he said, declining to give his name.

From Italians stay afloat by faking it on Amazon | Reuters.

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Illicit sales of fake negative Covid-19 test results are becoming more widespread as criminals look to profit from travel restrictions imposed during the pandemic, according to Europol.

From Fake Covid tests: Criminals try to profit from travel restrictions.

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Working with Germany’s Finance Agency, the Bundesbank says the project demonstrated that it is possible to establish a technological bridge between blockchain technology and conventional payment systems to settle securities in central bank money.

From German central bank makes case for blockchain settlement in CBDC debate.

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The cross-industry commitment underlines the Project’s scope and ambition: the vast amount of global regulation in the digital economy means that humans cannot compile such a repository alone, so the Project uses machine learning and natural language processing to convert human-readable text into machine-readable code

From CMS, Grant Thornton UK LLP, Macfarlanes, and Mastercard to collaborate with the Regulatory Genome Project at the University of Cambridge | Regulatory Genome.

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Many banks are concerned that distributing their products through partners threatens their client relationships, but if end users begin adopting embedded finance in significant numbers, banks may have little choice but to launch BaaS business lines.

From What the embedded-finance and banking-as-a-service trends mean for financial services | McKinsey & Company:

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Munich, Germany – 28 January 2021 – In a joint project, Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) and DIGISEQ, an IoT platform provider with end-to-end service, utilize SECORA™ Blockchain NFC technology to deliver secured identity data. This advanced solution connects the digital data recorded on blockchain to the physical item, allowing for comprehensive verification of the identity of items – eliminating the challenge of product substitution and heightening supply chain transparency.

From Infineon and DIGISEQ develop secured physical asset verification to provide end-to-end brand protection — Blog:

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Pubs could be allowed to ditch social distancing rules and allow people to crowd together as long as they check customers’ Covid status on entry, the Guardian understands.

From Pubs that check Covid status may be allowed to drop social distancing | World news | The Guardian:

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The response should not be, as I wrote in Forbes last year, to continue to use cash despite the expense, inefficiency and inconvenience, but to find effective digital alternatives for those trapped in a cash economy.