Today In Payments: Big Tech CEOs Face Congress; Venmo Pilots Business Payments For Micro SMBs

In today’s top news, the CEOs of the four biggest tech companies will testify before Congress over antitrust issues, and Venmo introduced business payments for individuals. Plus, the head of Germany’s financial watchdog defended its actions over Wirecard.

Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple CEOs To Face Congress

The CEOs of the world’s four biggest technology companies will testify later this month before the House Judiciary Committee as lawmakers investigate competition in the tech industry. The panel has pressed for tougher antitrust rules and enforcement.

Venmo Pilots Business Payments For Micro SMBs

Venmo will introduce a new feature for businesses to accept payments separate from the individual owner’s account. The payments company said the idea was to add features for those like “sole proprietors, casual sellers, and users with a side hustle.”

BaFin Head Says Regulator Had Limited Ability To Regulate Wirecard

Felix Hufeld, head of Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin, denied that its regulators failed to investigate Wirecard. Hufeld said Wirecard was classified as a technology company, not a financial services provider, and not under BaFin’s jurisdiction.

SoftBank-Backed Lemonade Snags $319M In IPO At $1.6B Valuation

Lemonade, the insurance startup backed by Japan’s SoftBank, came off an initial public offering (IPO) with $319 million. The company is valued at $1.6 billion.

PayPal’s Magats: Digital Shift Forces New Focus On Auth Rates — And New Ways To Boost Them

Tokenized credentials improve conversions but are only one of three things that merchants can do to boost auth rates by 200 basis points or more, Jim Magats, senior vice president of Omni Payments at PayPal, tells Karen Webster. COVID-19 and the massive shift to digital, he says, has merchants now keenly dialed into the fact that improving auth rates is well within their ability to control, without imposing friction on good buyers. Here’s how.

How The Pandemic Makes 90-Day Customer Histories A Fraud-Fighting Weakness

The shuttering and reopening of states’ economies are causing seismic shifts in consumer behaviors. Tried and tested ways of catching fraudsters, such as comparing consumers’ activities against their 90-day transaction histories, are now resulting in false positives, says Carlos Mejia, chief digital executive at Pacific National Bank. In this month’s Next-Gen Debit Tracker, Mejia explains how creating short-term-only customer behavior profiles can help banks uncover bad actors.

The One Employment Stat That Could Threaten The Recovery

Labor data out this week indicate that nearly half of American adults might be unemployed, but several million more workers are still in jobs but dealing with pay cuts. The former is what gets widely reported and the target of stimulus programs, but it’s the latter that could make it harder to get a recovery really moving.