Sat.May 23, 2020 - Fri.May 29, 2020

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Preparing Merchants For The Coming Mobile Wallet Boost

PYMNTS

Call it the great shift. We’re still navigating the pandemic — which means doing what we used to do offline, increasingly, through digital means. As PYMNTS found in a recent consumer study, 40 percent of individuals are doing more of their daily retail and transactions online, partly because, well, there’s no other way to do it. And as many as 22 percent of the population surveyed said those habits would stick.

Start-ups 112
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Ben’s Message

MazumaBusinessAccounting

June Newsletter. As a small business owner, I am constantly hiring new employees and am immersed in the hiring process. I love the beginning of the process, particularly looking through resumes. Each resume has a story. The single piece of paper has years of hard work, dedication, experience, and discipline. I often ponder at my own experience and wonder “what’s my story, and what’s the next chapter?

CPA 96
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Trending Sources

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SBA Releases Interim Final Rules on PPP Loan Forgiveness and Loan Review

Katz,Sapper&Miller

Over Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued the interim final rule on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness.

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Ode to Les: Six Life Lessons My Mentor Taught Me

RLLeaders

I got an out-of-the-blue email the other day from a couple of old friends and colleagues. They were looping me into a broader email thread of former Les Aspin staffers in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Les’ death. For those of you who don’t know, Aspin was former Secretary of Defense for President Clinton, wicked smart, and—whether he wanted to be or not—my mentor.

Gaming 69
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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Amanda Adams, Fractional CFO, CPA

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Amanda Adams, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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Using Sensors And IoT To Thwart Home Invasions (Of Privacy)

PYMNTS

To monitor a home and to make sure all is safe and secure means you have to monitor the people and the activities inside. How to do that without destroying privacy in the age of work from home, shop from home, do-everything from home? In the age of connected devices, it may be that the sensor can go a long way toward eliminating that all standby, the unblinking eye of the camera — always on, and perhaps intrusive.

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What Can You Spend Your PPP Forgivable Loan on?

xendoo

If your small businesses managed to secure a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan before the well ran dry, your next task is figuring out how to use it. Here’s a list of the expenses that qualify for forgiveness (meaning you don’t have to pay the loan back). Remember, your lender will perform an audit at the end of the 8-week forgiveness period to see how you spent the loan.

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More Trending

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How the Coronavirus Could Lead to a New Renaissance

RLLeaders

The future has never been guaranteed. Even so, we’ve taken it for granted, and have avoided preparing in government, our businesses, and society in general. We tend to “work in,” not “work on,” managing too many crises and tasks to tackle the tough questions about the reliability of our futures, let alone develop plans to mitigate eventual problems.

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Why ?Dining Out? Is About To Become A Much More Literal Term

PYMNTS

Memorial Day weekend is upon us – which means here in the United States, summer is officially setting up to begin. Sort of. With the outbreak of an international pandemic, our summer plans have been rather modified, as consumers seem to be considering what the safest summer plans might be, and opting to tread a bit differently than they have in the past. .

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Green Dot To Launch Mobile Banking For US Immigrants

PYMNTS

Welcome Technologies , which works to aid immigrants as they integrate into life in a new country, is partnering with Green Dot for the PODERCard, which will help U.S. Hispanic immigrants access digital banking services, according to a press release. Less than half of U.S. Hispanic immigrants have access to actual banking services, the release states, citing an FDIC survey.

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How To Keep Fraudsters From Scamming Banks Across Every Nook And Channel

PYMNTS

More consumers are turning to the omnichannel offerings of banks and credit unions (CUs) as they follow stay-at-home mandates, and cybercriminals are eager to launch attacks that make use of these channels. Account takeovers (ATOs) rose 347 percent from 2018 to 2019 — a problem that will only worsen if financial institutions (FIs) are not vigilant. Fraudsters seek to fly under the radar by stealing information through one channel that they then use to execute ATOs or other attacks.

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Avoiding Lease Accounting Pitfalls in 2025: Lessons Learned from Spreadsheet Errors

Speaker: Abdi Ali, Sr. Lease Accounting Consultant

Join this insightful webinar with industry expert Abdi Ali, who will discuss the challenges that can arise from managing lease accounting with spreadsheets! He will share real-world examples of errors, compliance issues, and risks that may be present within your spreadsheets. Learn how these tools, while useful, can sometimes lead to inefficiencies that affect your time, resources, and peace of mind.

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Amazon Eyes Zoox Acquisition For Autonomous Cars

PYMNTS

Amazon is in talks to buy self-driving car startup Zoox in a move that would advance the eCommerce giant’s reach in autonomous vehicle technology, according to a Tuesday (May 26) report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing sources familiar with the matter. In a 2018 funding round, Zoox was valued at $3.2 billion; a sale now would likely reflect a decreased valuation.

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The Blueprint For Rethinking Main Street

PYMNTS

For the small shops and independently owned restaurants that line America’s Main Streets from coast to coast, the past eight weeks have been a difficult time leading toward an incredibly uncertain future. Forced to close their doors by stay-at-home orders, the majority of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that PYMNTS has surveyed said they didn’t believe they would have enough cash to see them through the pandemic — even with government Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.

Maine 98
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Innovating The ATM Beyond Cash

PYMNTS

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the pace of digital innovation across the financial sector, and credit unions (CUs) are no exception. CU branches across the United States have temporarily closed to help slow the spread of contagion, forcing CUs to find new ways to engage with their members via connected technologies, from mobile devices to laptops and especially ATMs.

Legal 97
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SDF Invests $550K In SatoshiPay For B2B X-Border Solution

PYMNTS

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has made a $550,000 strategic investment to go toward SatoshiPay ‘s development of a B2B cross-border payments solution and its digital wallets, according to a press release. SDF’s investment came by way of convertible loan notes and was the third investment the foundation has made in SatoshiPay. The convertible loan notes will likely convert at the time of SatoshiPay’s next funding round, the release states.

B2B 97
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Back to Basics with Reconciliations

Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

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Home Sales Up 0.6 Pct In April Despite Lockdown

PYMNTS

Sales of new single-family homes were up 0.6 percent in April compared to March, but they fell by 6 percent compared to April 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The seasonally adjusted number of new houses sold last month totaled 623,000, down from 664,000 in April 2019. As home sales fell, so did prices.

Sales 95
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FIs Or FinTechs: Who Will Power Banking?s Big Digital Shift?

PYMNTS

The pandemic has accelerated the digital roadmap for everyone in financial services, giving rise to more innovation in the past few months than had been seen over the course of several years. And according to five observers across the spectrum of traditional financial institutions (FIs), payment networks and digital-only banks, opportunities are there for digital-first and hybrid models alike to succeed — so long as they harbor a relentless focus on identifying and solving customer problems.

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ABB On How Smart Cities Can Emerge Stronger Out Of The Pandemic

PYMNTS

The global smart cities market is projected to grow to nearly $3.5 trillion by 2026, driven by investment in everything from connected street lighting systems to smart electrical grids. The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted global economies and supply chains, and some might thus expect public officials and company leaders to put the brakes on large-scale smart city investments.

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Payments Tech Takes Advantage Of Payment Rails Building Blocks

PYMNTS

Despite some drawbacks, legacy rails have mounds of potential to tackle a multitude of B2B payments friction points. For payments technology players, finding the opportunities to build upon existing infrastructure continues to open up new doors in B2B payments improvements. This week’s look at the latest in payments rails innovation finds players including Mastercard, Aflex and Paycor targeting existing card and ACH rails to expand their use for corporates, with a focus on reconciliation,

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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O’Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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What Legacy FIs Miss About The Need For Cloud-Based Infrastructure

PYMNTS

Financial institutions (FIs) have been adapting their platforms and technologies to better suit the needs of more digital consumers for decades, but the coronavirus has placed new importance and pressure on accelerating these efforts. Allowing customers uninterrupted access to their online financial accounts and processing digital payments quickly is critical during this time as brick-and-mortar branches are either closed or on limited hours.

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MoneyGram, Uber Offer Discount On Digital Money Transfers To Drivers

PYMNTS

MoneyGram is partnering with Uber in order to offer discounts on money transfers to over 200 countries and territories, a press release states. The discount is available to anyone who earns money on an Uber-related gig economy app, including Uber Eats, Uber Works and Uber Freight. “The spread of COVID-19 has been hard for everyone, and it has been particularly challenging for people who drive and deliver with companies like ours.

Finance 88
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Walmart, Green Dot Announce Enhanced MoneyCard Features

PYMNTS

With features such as free cash deposits and a high-yield savings account, Walmart and Green Dot unveiled updated benefits for the Walmart MoneyCard Reloadable Debit Card program. The Walmart MoneyCard will now offer accountholders a 2 percent annual percentage yield on money saved with a connected savings account, among other features, per an announcement.

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FedEx Eyes Stake In Germany’s Hermes Delivery Service

PYMNTS

With home deliveries surging, FedEx may be looking to acquire stake in German delivery firm Hermes , according to the Handelsblatt newspaper, as reported by Reuters. FedEx has very limited presence in Europe’s delivery circuit, and Petra Scharner-Wolff , finance chief of Hermes, said the company’s efforts to find a strategic partner for parcel delivery had sparked “broad interest,” according to Reuters.

B2B 86
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Harness the Potential of Your Enterprise Knowledge

The first Market Momentum Index: AI and Unstructured Data Management, conducted by Deep Analysis with support from AIIM and M-Files, surveyed 500 enterprises across various industries to assess their readiness to employ AI. The results reveal that AI is already far more embedded into organizations' operations than previously realized. These findings and more insights have been brought to you in the "Market Momentum Index: AI and Unstructured Data Management.

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Uber Debuts $50 Hourly Ride Option In Select US Cities

PYMNTS

Starting next month, ridesharing users in a dozen cities can opt in for a $50 an hour ride, Uber Technologies Inc. announced on Friday (May 29). Following a pilot program in Australia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, this new feature is aimed at helping Americans with essential trips during the COVID-19 pandemic, the San Francisco-based company said.

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Consumer Foot Traffic Up, But Time Spent In Store Is Shorter, Mall Group CEO Says

PYMNTS

The owner/operator of 85 shopping centers in California, Colorado and Illinois said shoppers are returning to recently reopened malls, but they’re not lingering, according to a CNBC report. “Since last week, our average traffic has been up about 25 percent, so we are seeing more customers starting to come back,” Newmark Merrill CEO Sandy Sigal told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” Monday (May 26).

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PPP Loan Demand Peters Out Amid SMB Confusion

PYMNTS

First the rush to get in – and then, perhaps, the rush to get out. Since debuting on April 3, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) – the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA’s) initiative to grant SMBs forgiveness loans to pay workers for eight weeks instead of laying people off – has had a rocky time of it. Glitches and delays initially bedeviled the roughly $660 billion program, and it’s had a bumpy ride ever since, as the SBA and U.S.

payroll 79
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Sweden?s Economy Grew In Q1 In Absence Of Lockdown

PYMNTS

Sweden is winning the race among European nations to restore the economy from the coronavirus pandemic, according to data published on Friday (May 29), CNBC reported. The Nordic country reported its gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of economic health, grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent from January through March. . Its growth may be the result of the nation’s decision not to impose a full lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. .

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Solve Your Firm's Automation Complexities Once and For All

Speaker: Mark Stovel

When it comes to automating, many firms focus on finding the latest tech, believing that efficiency is something achieved through new tools. Yet true efficiency is achieved by delivering real value to clients, not merely by upgraded systems. Without a clear approach, no level of automation can overcome the complexities of serving every client’s needs.

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TIS Notches $20M For B2B Payments Flow Platform Expansion

PYMNTS

To continue its fast international expansion, TIS (Treasury Intelligence Solutions) notched $20 million in additional financing led by Aquiline Technology Growth. The funding round for the corporate payments and cash flow management cloud platform also included participation from 83North, an existing investor, according to an announcement. TIS CEO and Co-Founder Jörg Wiemer said in the announcement, “We are proud to have Aquiline on board alongside our existing investors.

B2B 76
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Crypto.com Expands Card To 31 Countries

PYMNTS

Digital-payments company i2c Inc. has unveiled a partnership to power the expansion of Crypto.com ’s end-to-end crypto ecosystem, which consists of a Visa crypto debit card and a wallet app to buy and sell crypto and earn cash-back rewards in crypto form. Crypto.com currently offers the system in the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom, but is expanding it to 31 European countries, according to a press release.

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Goldman Takes Bitcoin To Task

PYMNTS

Bitcoin : not worth much – except what someone else is willing to pay for it. Goldman Sachs’ withering assessment of bitcoin this week may be enough to take some wind out of the sails of those who have been looking for the marquee name in crypto to find its way into mainstream commerce. As reported by the Financial Times , Goldman was once a staunch advocate of bitcoin, and had been, just a few years ago, examining whether to launch a bitcoin trading desk.

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Malls See Increase in Foot Traffic, But Less Time Spent In Store

PYMNTS

The owner/operator of 85 shopping centers in California, Colorado and Illinois said shoppers are returning to recently reopened malls, but they’re not lingering, according to a CNBC report. “Since last week, our average traffic has been up about 25 percent, so we are seeing more customers starting to come back,” Newmark Merrill CEO Sandy Sigal told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” Monday (May 26).

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It Takes Two to Tango

With automation, you’ll reduce errors and save valuable time, allowing you to focus on what really matters: strategic analysis and insightful decision-making. Picture accurate financial reports ready at your fingertips, giving you the confidence to tackle business challenges head-on. Embracing automation not only boosts productivity but also elevates your role from number cruncher to closing rockstar.