April, 2018

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Warehouses Aren’t Keeping Up With eCommerce

PYMNTS

Retail continues to migrate toward eCommerce, but warehouse space is not designed to keep up with the increasing pace of online orders. The average age of a warehouse in the U.S. is more than 30 years old, and many lack modern features, CNBC reported. CBRE has found that most warehouses constructed prior to 2005 had low ceilings, tight space and uneven flooring — issues that are not easy to fix through a renovation.

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Revenue Recognition Changes Are Here. Is Your Manufacturing Company Ready?

Katz,Sapper&Miller

In recent years, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) received feedback that revenue recognition guidance was fragmented at best, confusing at worst. This is significant considering revenue is the key measurement used to determine a manufacturing company’s performance. In response to this feedback, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, in May 2014, and subsequently amended it.

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TRENDING: Robots And Humans Join Forces To Speed eCommerce, Together

PYMNTS

Companies recognize the need for IoT security, but few are acting on those concerns. According to a recent survey, 97 percent of respondents said an attack on unsecured devices would be devastating to their organizations. However, less than a third are actually vigilant about monitoring for third-party related risks. Despite the security risks, the popularity of IoT seems unlikely to abate.

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Top Subscription Services Find Success With Free Trials

PYMNTS

In many businesses, acquiring customers used to be a function of where the business was located — a high traffic intersection for a convenience store or a well-heeled mall for a clothing retailer. Technology, of course, changed all that. It’s also made the offering of subscription services a robust channel for a business to operate in. By one measure , subscription company websites have seen visitor growth of over 800 percent since 2014.

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Building a Business Case for Finance Automation

Speaker: Danny Gassaway and Wayne Richards

Finance leaders are prioritizing efficiency and digital transformation, yet many hesitate to automate due to uncertainty. Without a clear understanding of its impact, organizations risk falling behind competitors who are leveraging automation to drive productivity and cost savings. Join Wayne Richards and Danny Gassaway from AvidXchange for a practical guide on bringing accounts payable (AP) automation to your organization.

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Foursquare Launches Geolocation API For Developers, SMBs

PYMNTS

Foursquare is offering small businesses (SMBs) and startups access to its geolocation API, according to VentureBeat reports on Friday (April 13). The company already offers location identification services to companies like Snapchat and Uber, enabling geolocation within their own platforms. Now, Foursquare is extending this service to SMBs via its Places API for Startups.

B2B 74
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Can FinTech Walk The FinTalk?

PYMNTS

Benjamin Franklin is best remembered as a signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and a prolific inventor who created the lightning rod after flying a kite with a key on it in a thunderstorm. A little known fact, perhaps, is that Franklin is credited with inventing two things that almost every person has used — or will — at some point in their lifetime: swimming fins and bifocals.

More Trending

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Insurers Test Blockchain To Manage Provider Data

PYMNTS

The blockchain is making inroads into healthcare. Earlier this week, five healthcare firms operating across the U.S. insurance landscape said they’re launching a pilot program that will help boost the management of healthcare provider data. The five organizations include insurers Humana , UnitedHealthcare , Quest Diagnostics , Optum and MultiPlan. (Optum and UnitedHealthcare are part of UnitedHealth Group).

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Coinbase Starts Cryptocurrency Venture Fund

PYMNTS

To give cryptocurrency startups and their founders a boost, Coinbase has started a new incubator fund called Coinbase Ventures. While the popular cryptocurrency exchange expects the fund’s profits to be small compared to those of its overall business, the fund already has $15 million and is expected to grow, CNBC reported. “We’re going to invest off our balance sheet into crypto-companies,” Coinbase President and Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji told CNBC.

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Solving For The Unknowns In Small Business Banking

PYMNTS

Small business (SMB) banking is in need of an overhaul. Between the threat of FinTechs and small business owners’ increasing willingness to switch banking providers, financial institutions are waking up to the demand for better SMB services. But an increased focus on innovation means the path to understanding what actually constitutes “better” is unclear.

B2B 70
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Ripple Partners With Five European And Asian Payment Providers

PYMNTS

Ripple has announced that five new customers across Europe and Asia will use xVia to power payments over RippleNet, its blockchain network. The companies partnering with Ripple are FairFX (U.K.), RationalFX (U.K.), Exchange4Free (U.K.), UniPAY (Georgia), and MoneyMatch (Malaysia). xVia is an API solution enabling payment originators (those sending a payment on behalf of a customer, but not actually processing and paying it out) to access RippleNet.

Georgia 70
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Fall In Love With the Month-End Close

It's the time of year to give our close process some TLC. Join us in this one hour webinar where we discuss how to adopt leading practices and infuse technology into the month-end close process to improve our experience and increase our productivity during month-end and quarter-end close. Learning Objectives: This course's objective is to understand how the month-end close can be improved with automation and adoption of leading practices.

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Meet Ben, An AI-Based Bitcoin Friend

PYMNTS

Much has been written about buying bitcoin in specific, and cryptocurrency in general. Whether it’s investing or gambling, whether it’s a good idea or immoral – no ink has been spared in uncovering every angle on cryptocurrency and what its purchase and sale will mean for the future of money. With one, curious exception, as Ben, Inc. co-founder and CEO Miguel Kudry noted in an interview with PYMNTS.

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Amid Blockchain And Robotics Hype, Corporate Lenders Still Start With The Cloud

PYMNTS

Consumers demand easy, digital banking, but this pressure for banks to deliver is also coming from corporate clients. Take mobile banking, which has propelled the introduction of mobile-only banks to meet demand for better services on smaller screens. It’s not only for consumers, though: Alternative lending firm Kabbage recently found that mobile lending is on the rise among small businesses, with a more than 360 percent increase in the number of SMB loans accessed via mobile device betwee

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Facebook Admits Most Of Its 2B Users Had Their Public Profiles Scraped Without Permission

PYMNTS

Another data issue for Facebook: The company announced that “malicious actors” were able to use search tools to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide. The news came on the same day that the social media site admitted that data improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica could be much higher than the originally estimated 50 million users.

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Salesforce VP On Channeling APIs For Personalized Financial Services

PYMNTS

Financial services players, both big and small, are embracing APIs in a major way — as they should. From solutions designed to increase the use of new technologies like the blockchain , to those aimed at giving consumers a more personalized set of products and services, APIs are being used to unlock all kinds of new capabilities. And now, around the industry, banks, financial managers and other players are seemingly embracing the age of APIs.

B2B 67
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Navigating Payroll Compliance: Future-Proofing Payroll in an Evolving Regulatory Landscape

Speaker: Jennifer Hill

Payroll compliance is a cornerstone of business success, yet for small and midsize businesses, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of federal, state, and local regulations. Mistakes can lead to costly penalties and operational disruptions, making it essential to adopt advanced solutions that ensure accuracy and efficiency.

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Samsung Pay And PayPal Power In-Store Payments

PYMNTS

Brick-and-mortar retail has spent the last decade building bridges to the digital world so a new generation of digital consumers can move fluidly between them. What’s been largely left behind, however, is a payments experience that moves just as seamlessly between those worlds. There have been many attempts to bridge the gap, but consumers haven’t really taken the bait.

Retail 66
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Chef’d CEO: Why The Existing Meal Kit Model Doesn’t Work

PYMNTS

Get ready for a shift in the meal kit landscape, according to Chef’d CEO Kyle Ransford. In the latest Topic TBD with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, which explored the preparation and delivery of food rendered as a service, Ransford predicted that “I think the subscription meal kit as it’s been known will be vastly diminished in the next two years. It won’t be something that you hear a lot of or get marketed to a lot.

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Where Are Our Robot Butlers?

PYMNTS

It’s fair to say we live in the future. A vast majority of Americans carry a super-computer in their pockets that can be used as a GPS navigator, a payment method, a source of entertainment and a shopping mall. Oh, and you can also use it to make phone calls. Beyond our casual use of technology (that would have seemed like pure science fiction in the 1950s and sorcery in the 1850s), we also have washing machines that order their own detergent, refrigerators that suggest recipes and vacuum cleane

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Ripple Invests $25M Worth Of XRP Into Blockchain Capital’s Fund

PYMNTS

Ripple , the blockchain company, announced news on Wednesday (April 11) that it has invested $25 million of its XRP cryptocurrency in Blockchain Capital’s $150 million fund Blockchain Capital Parallel IV. In a press release, Ripple said Blockchain Capital is the first fund focused solely on the blockchain space and is also the first to accept capital calls in cryptocurrency.

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Next-Level Fraud Prevention: Strategies for Today’s Threat Landscape

Speaker: Sierre Lindgren

Fraud is a battle that every organization must face – it’s no longer a question of “if” but “when.” Every organization is a potential target for fraud, and the finance department is often the bullseye. From cleverly disguised emails to fraudulent payment requests, the tactics of cybercriminals are advancing rapidly. Drawing insights from real-world cases and industry expertise, we’ll explore the vulnerabilities in your processes and how to fortify them effectively.

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Grocers Can Tap Into Price Comparison Apps

PYMNTS

The initial inner workings of a price comparison tool called Basket began when Neil Kataria was a kid. He loved to optimize his mom and dad’s shopping trips by clipping coupons and spotting sales. Years later, he found himself spending a ton of baby products and groceries when he had a family. And comparing prices between grocers wasn’t an easy feat.

Retail 63
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The (eCommerce) Race Is To The Swift

PYMNTS

Going too slow these days is a costly error to make, as consumers don’t have the patience to wait for their merchants to catch up. If a purchase takes too long to complete, customers will migrate to another site where things move more smoothly, according to this month’s Checkout Conversion Index. And while it’s an exaggeration to state that customers are all turning to Amazon , the eCommerce giant’s latest earnings release indicates a lot of them are.

Sales 63
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Amazon Announces HQ2 – On Mars

PYMNTS

In a move that devastated, and perplexed, local officials nationwide, Amazon announced the forthcoming home of its second headquarters. It’s going to be Mars. In fact, according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon HQ2 will be the first building to be constructed in Alexalopolis which Amazon’s CEO explained to assembled reporters this morning, will someday be the capital city of Mars itself.

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Menswear On Wheels: Taylrd Takes Retail On The Road

PYMNTS

It’s time for retailers to stop looking at brick-and-mortar like it’s dying. Traditional retail is changing, it’s true – and that has manifested as a fair amount of growing pains – but the perception that physical retail is a sinking ship may be leading merchants astray. Perhaps it’s better to think of modern retail as a chrysalis. Traditional retail was the caterpillar, inching along slowly but steadily, and somewhere ahead lies the magnificent butterfly of omnichannel, experiential, contextual

Retail 62
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Cash Flow Secrets Every Upskilled CPA Should Know

Speaker: Debra L. Robinson

CPAs know the drill: taxes, compliance, rinse, repeat. But what about the sneaky cash flow that’s quietly messing with your organization’s success? It’s time to step into the spotlight and expose the “dirty little secrets” of cash flow to fuel strategic growth. By upskilling your accounting practices and shifting focus from tax compliance to the strategic movement of money, you can transform your role from reactive accountant to proactive financial strategist.

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Secondhand Is First Thought For Growing Number Of Shoppers

PYMNTS

For many consumers, secondhand is becoming their first thought when it comes to clothes shopping. It’s a movement that’s been gaining momentum since the recession in 2008. Today, one in three women are reporting that they shopped secondhand within the past year, according to research by thredUP. That’s a total of 44 million shoppers in 2017. Compare that to 35 million the previous year, and it’s clear this trend is not only on the rise, it’s growing dramatically, with the potential to reach $41

Retail 60
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In Latest Hacking News, Best Buy Breached?

PYMNTS

Hacking 24/7 when it comes to [24]7.ai ? Seems that way. In a week that saw possible data breaches at Delta , Kmart and Sears , Best Buy joins the parade of victimized firms. Data pilfered may have spanned names, credit card details and other important bits of personally identifiable information. There’s a common thread that runs through the roster of companies that may have been exposed.

Retail 60
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Uber Expands Uber Bike, Gets Into Car Rentals

PYMNTS

Uber , aiming to expand access to transportation for the masses, announced news on Wednesday (April 11) that it has launched a series of product updates that help riders get around without the need for a vehicle. In a blog pos t, Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said to meet that end, Uber Bike by JUMP is expanding to Washington, D.C. The service, which was first piloted in San Francisco earlier in 2018, will enable residents and visitors to Washington, D.C. to find and book a JUMP pedal-a

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PaySimple Embeds Payments, Cash Management Tools For In-Field Technicians

PYMNTS

Payments and commerce company PaySimple announced its latest integration into a third-party service provider. The firm announced it is integrating its payments processing capabilities, PaySimple AppConnect, into Profit Rhino, a mobile sales tool and pricing service platform for in-the-field service providers like home services and repairs. While the integration means Profit Rhino users will be able to accept payments on-site, PaySimple is also providing additional back-office features to the por

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Profit in the Details: Rethinking Spend for Monumental Impact

Speaker: Aaron Berson

Managing spend is more than a cost cutting exercise – it's a pathway to smarter decisions that unlock efficiency and drive growth. By understanding and refining the spending process, financial leaders can empower their organizations to achieve more with less. Explore the art of balancing financial control with operational growth. From uncovering hidden inefficiencies to designing workflows that scale your business, we’ll share strategies to align your organization’s spending with its strategic g

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Mastercard: Invisible Payments Power Mobility As A Service

PYMNTS

It wasn’t so long ago that traveling to a new city meant swinging by the bookstore, picking up a guidebook and planning the itinerary based on one’s research of the area. Entire businesses were built upon the notion of providing local tips and expertise to non-locals. Thanks to the smartphone, those days are gone – but in terms of a digital replacement for the guidebook, it’s still largely a cobbled-together experience across several apps with different purposes.

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Treasurers Overconfident On Cyber Defenses

PYMNTS

With a threefold increase in the number of corporates who had been hit by a ransomware attack in the last year compared to a year prior, corporate treasurers have been forced to swallow the large, uncomfortable pill of the threat of cyberattacks and fraud on their organizations in a short amount of time. But Strategic Treasurer , which highlighted that statistic in its latest Treasury Fraud & Controls survey report sponsored by Bottomline Technologies, found an impressively high level of opt

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Taboola CEO: Why Android News Will Unlock New Content/Commerce Models

PYMNTS

It’s called the Paradox of Choice , or “analysis paralysis” – and anyone who has ever frozen in the face of searching Netflix for a Friday night movie has felt its icy grasp. Stated simply, it says that too much choice is bad for the average customer, who becomes so weighted down trying to figure out what they “really want” that they find it hard to choose anything at all.

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GDPR’s Data Breach Notification Requirements Tripping Up Businesses

PYMNTS

The U.K. is only weeks away from bringing its Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules into effect, and corporates are ill-prepared for the data security requirements, according to new research. Law firm McDermott Will & Emery collaborated with Ponemon Institute to assess how U.K. businesses are getting ready for GDPR to take effect on May 25.

B2B 59
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Navigating Bleisure Travel: A Guide for Mid-Sized Companies

Bleisure travel — where employees combine work and leisure — has been around since the advent of corporate travel and is here to stay. Successful bleisure policies strike a balance between employee preferences and company goals — workers report a 64% improvement in work-life balance, while companies benefit from reduced travel costs and increased workforce innovation.