As part of an effort to push its mobile payment app as deeply into retail as possible, China-based Tencent Holdings has increased the size of its minority ownership of a shopping mall and logistics developer. “Tencent’s deepening ties with China South City Holdings could create...
FiveStars, a 3-year-old loyalty reward firm focused on small businesses, has raised $26 million. “Menlo Ventures led the Series B investment, joined by the company’s earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM and Rogers Communications,” the Wall Street Journal reported. FiveStars has about 150 full-time and...
The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has created a working group to study the implications of using digital account tokens to replace card numbers, for both in-store and E-Commerce use. “In the U.S., bodies such as EMVCo, The Clearing House, and card networks, are focusing...
The U.S. Postal Service has been delivering groceries for Amazon and has decided it wants to do a lot more. The agency this week, according to The Wall Street Journal, asked the Postal Regulatory Commission for permission for a 2-year test of the plan in...
The District Attorneys of Los Angeles and San Francisco are threatening three prominent mobile ride services—Uber Technologies, Lyft and Sidecar—with injunctions and accused them of violating California law. The accusation is that the services are “misleading customers about how thoroughly (they) check the criminal backgrounds...
Apple Pay may be the catalyst that mobile payments needed to get the payments ecosystem cranking, but that’s not all it did. It’s launched a whole new focus for the largest payments network in the world – tokens and data. Visa’s mobile chief, Bill Gajda,...
For those investors hungry for some tablets-in-restaurants payment action, E La Carte offered some apparently tasty shares as it raised $35 million for a global expansion. “Previous investors Intel Capital and Romulus Capital returned to lead the round, which also included commitments from angel investor,...
If banks aren’t paying attention and adjusting their strategy, they are on the verge of disruption by startups and high-growth tech firms. These firms are slowly taking away customers and market share from banks and traditional lending players. For example, Square enabled small businesses to...
Walmart’s ambitions to be a viable B2B supplier in India continue to grow, as two more of the megaretailer’s Best Price Modern Wholesale stores are set to add eCommerce-service support, in Guntur and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. The stores reportedly will begin supporting eCommerce sales...
