Sat.Jan 19, 2019 - Fri.Jan 25, 2019

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Fortnite’s In-Game Currency Used In Money Laundering Schemes

PYMNTS

A new report has revealed that Fortnite’s in-game currency is being used to launder money from stolen credit cards. According to a report by The Independent and cybersecurity firm Sixgill , a hacker will access someone else’s credit card information, and then use it to create a Fortnite account and buy V-bucks, which is the game’s currency. Once the account fills up with V-bucks, it is then sold through a legitimate vendor like eBay, or on the dark web, for lower rates that the $10 for 1,000 gam

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Tax Reform: Nondeductible Parking Expenses and Their Impact on Your Business

Katz,Sapper&Miller

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) provides that expenses for qualified transportation fringe benefits are nondeductible. The IRS recently released interim guidance via Notice 2018-99 clarifying that a portion of taxpayers’ “parking expenses” is considered nondeductible as qualified transportation fringes. Thus, Notice 2018-99 has significantly expanded the number of taxpayers that will need to calculate the nondeductible portion of their parking expenses.

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Mastercard Fined $648.3 Million By EU Over Interchange Fees

PYMNTS

Mastercard was slapped with a $648.3 million fine by the European Union, which alleged that the payments company raised the costs of card payments artificially. According to a report in Reuters , citing the European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust regulator, the move is part of an effort on the part of European regulators to stamp out fees that U.S. credit card companies charge.

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How AR/VR Tech Is Reshaping Retail

PYMNTS

Before consumers started to trade brick-and-mortar shopping experiences for eCommerce websites, retailers could bring customers through their doors with window displays. Now, with this shift, retailers are creating engaging experiences that digitally-connected consumers can tap into online with the help of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies.

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The Growth Architect: How Financial Leaders are Unlocking Potential

Speaker: Ashley Harlan, MBA

What if your role as a fractional CFO went beyond operational support to actively shaping the future of your clients’ businesses? 💼 ✨ In this session, discover how fractional finance professionals can position themselves as architects of growth, guiding their clients toward sustainable success and preparing them for full-time financial leadership.

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PSD2 Creates Turbulence For Travel Operators

PYMNTS

With PSD2 in full swing in the European Union (EU), any merchant dealing with the payment data of EU citizens must upgrade their payment protocols to stay compliant. That said, the fact that PSD2 is effectively changing how merchants transact doesn’t mean the merchants in question understand what those changes mean. In the January PSD2 Tracker , PYMNTS examines how money movement and data flow are getting an upgrade with PSD2, as well as how the upcoming SCA regulation is bound to affect user au

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No Pain, No Gain? GDPR, PSD2 And The New Payments Reality

PYMNTS

Last year brought the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deadline, Europe’s attempt to boost online privacy and security for consumers — a law that just resulted in a $57 million fine against Google , which was accused of not doing enough to gain the consent of users when collecting data meant for targeted advertising. This year brings the Second Payment Services Directive ( PSD2 ) deadline, also in Europe, with its designs meant to encourage more security and innovation in the payments

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The Big Tech Canary In The Faster Payments Coal Mine

PYMNTS

There’s a canary in the faster payments coalmine. It flew in on Dec. 14, the Friday before the week before Christmas, so you might not have noticed. That was the day that an advocacy group, Financial Innovation Now (FIN), submitted a public comment letter to the Fed in response to its proposal to create and operate a real-time payments system in the U.S.

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Corporate Finance’s Interest In AI Doesn’t Lead To Adoption: Oracle

PYMNTS

Last year was the year of artificial intelligence (AI), declared Brighterion CEO Dr. Akli Adjaoute for PYMNTS’ 2018 year-end eBook. The technology is proliferating financial markets, particularly for some of the world’s largest financial institutions in need of enhanced compliance solutions. Corporate treasurers are exploring AI for their own cash management and forecasting needs, while AI is also being explored among both traditional and alternative finance players for risk mitigat

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Compliance Execs Forge Closer Ties With Corporate Buyers

PYMNTS

With third-party due diligence and supply chain security as increasingly critical components of organizations’ procurement operations, compliance executives are finding important positions in their firms’ purchasing processes. Understanding exposure to risk is essential for companies today, and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) research suggests awareness is strong, with U.S. and U.K. procurement professionals identifying supplier due diligence, internal compliance training, social gov

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How FinTech Startups Bring Keyword Searches To Financial Notes

PYMNTS

FinTech startups are introducing new ways for users to sift through information that was once hard to find: Intrinio , for instance, is now letting users search through notes and disclosures included on the SEC filings of U.S. public companies with keywords. Through the feature, users could look for “any indicators for sentiment analysis” to determine if a company is heading in “a good direction or a bad direction or any interesting events” Intrinio Founder and CEO Rachel Carpenter told PYMNTS i

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2025 Payroll Calendar Templates (Biweekly, Semi-Monthly, and Monthly)

Use these handy calendar templates to stay on top of payroll in 2025! Download them today to share with your HR team or post for employees. Whether your company has biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly pay periods, Paycor has you covered. Get your templates today!

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Twitter Data Breach Prompts GDPR Investigation

PYMNTS

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is Twitter’s lead regulator in the European Union. On Friday (Jan. 25), the DPC said it was again looking into the social media giant because of another breach notification it received from the company, according to a report from Reuters. “The DPC has this week opened a new statutory inquiry into the latest data breach it received from Twitter on 8 January, 2019,” the Commission said on its website.

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Pharma Tackles The Puzzle Of Data And B2B Payments

PYMNTS

If one wants to understand the complexities of the pharmaceutical supply chain, just follow the money. Contract negotiations between drug manufacturers, wholesalers, hospitals, pharmacies and their group purchasing organizations (GPOs) are ever-changing, meaning B2B payments are often incorrect, and chargebacks and disputes are common. Let’s say a manufacturer sells a drug for $100 to a wholesaler at wholesale acquisition cost (WAC).

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GoFundMe Crowdfunds For Furloughed Government Workers

PYMNTS

It’s been 10 full days since government workers missed their paychecks due to the prolonged government shutdown, and one of the most recognizable crowdfunding companies is stepping in to help. GoFundMe has launched a fundraising campaign targeted specifically to furloughed government workers, according to reports , and it’s raised around $90,000 from more than 1,000 people in just two days.

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Google Fined $57M By French Regulator In Largest GDPR Action

PYMNTS

Alphabet Inc.’s Google was hit with a $57 million fine Monday (Jan. 21) by a French regulator, in what the Wall Street Journal reported is the largest penalty under the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal , France’s National Data Protection Commission fined Google, saying it didn’t do enough to get the consent of users when gathering data used for targeted advertising.

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

Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, 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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JPMorgan To Issue Virtual Cards In Coupa Pay

PYMNTS

Coupa has announced another bank partner to join its recently launched suite of B2B payments solutions known as Coupa Pay. Coupa Software and JPMorgan announced on Tuesday (Jan. 22) that they are now working together to integrate JPMorgan’s Single-Use Accounts (SUA) virtual cards into the Coupa Virtual Cards for Purchase Orders offering, part of the Coupa Pay suite.

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Report: The 16 Things That Will Take Subscription Commerce To The Next Level

PYMNTS

At their core, subscription services are simple and straightforward. A consumer pays a recurring fee and, in return, receives access to a selection of goods and services. Subscription merchants have duplicated this simple formula within every industry imaginable, but few today offer subscription services that resonate with what consumers want. So, what differentiates the best from the rest?

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Do Grocery Stores Need Bitcoin ATMs?

PYMNTS

There are few familiar places in the regular life of a consumer other than the grocery store , and that familiarity can breed a type of trust, a sense that nothing too weird or threatening will happen there. That doesn’t mean they can’t be about innovation. Supermarkets are home to some of retail’s major and ongoing technological advances — and 2018 stands as a big year for grocery innovation.

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How Inefficient B2B Payments Systems Hobble Business Growth

PYMNTS

Business confidence remains strong in the U.S., riding on the optimism of a strengthening economy that brings new opportunity for revenue growth. This is particularly true for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), most of which are anticipating revenue growth in the year ahead, according to JPMorgan Chase research. The firm’s Business Leaders Outlook report, published earlier this month, found that the majority of SMBs expect revenue, sales and profit increases in 2019, with executiv

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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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Banks Fight Back Against ‘Fake Grandchild’ Scammers Who Target Seniors

PYMNTS

Get ready for even more fake grandchildren when it comes to payments fraud. That’s one of the sad facts of life as more consumers hit senior citizen status, and criminals gain more expertise in conning people into giving over their money. That said, financial services professionals, backed by regulatory changes, are reportedly becoming better at recognizing when their senior citizen customers are being conned out of money in their bank accounts — an awareness that seems likely to increase in the

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Walmart Tests New Payments Approach To Up Online Conversions

PYMNTS

Walmart is testing out a new solution designed to automatically address soft declines on its eCommerce site. Walmart Labs, the technology arm of Walmart, discovered that most declined purchases on the retail giant’s site were soft declines, which are credit card rejections due to generic issuer errors such as server timeout or issuer unavailability.

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Bitcoin Daily: Coinbase Eyes Asia Expansion; R3, ING Pair On Blockchain Tech

PYMNTS

Bitcoin fell to a five-week low during this past holiday weekend, reaching $3,442.50, its lowest level since Dec. 17. By Tuesday (Jan. 22), the crypto was up 0.7 percent to hit $3,622.41 on the Kraken exchange, according to MarketWatch. “Bitcoin keeps bouncing along in the upper $3K range, but it was unable to extend last week’s breakout above this level,” wrote Market Analyst Jani Ziedins.

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What Do Antilock Brakes And Instant Payments Have In Common?

PYMNTS

“Can we all just agree that real-time access to money isn’t going to be an option anymore?” said Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards. That’s how Friday’s conversation between Edwards and Karen Webster started. Yet, according to the latest Disbursements Tracker , a collaborative effort between Ingo Money and PYMNTS, hurdles remain. The Tracker found that some 74 percent of business executives cited a lack of interoperability as a major inhibitor to their real-time payments adoption, along with the opera

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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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Alipay Rides The Payments Licensing Trend In Europe

PYMNTS

Alipay’s latest expansion — this time, to Luxembourg — shows not only the increasing reach of the China-based mobile payments ecosystem, but also stands as the latest example of companies in payments and FinTech gaining licenses to operate in Europe. There, PSD2 was designed to encourage FinTech and payments innovation. Alipay , which is part of the Alibaba group and has more than 700 million users , reportedly received a license from Luxembourg for a new entity called Alipay (Europe) Limited S.

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Mastercard, Rockefeller Foundation Pledge $50M For Data Science Philanthropy

PYMNTS

The Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, the two philanthropic arms of the organizations, announced a partnership on Tuesday (Jan. 22) called Data Science for Social Impact, according to a press release. The aim of the new organization is to “accelerate the use of data science by empowering nonprofit, civic and government organizations with the tools, expertise and other capabilities they need to help solve the world’s most pressing challenges.”.

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Google Loses Walmart In eCommerce Bid vs. Amazon

PYMNTS

There’s an old saying in battle that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. In eCommerce, all sorts of alliances emerge, with Amazon squarely in sight. And according to recent news on the eCommerce front, Google has lost a friend, seemingly, in at least part of its ongoing eCommerce battle against Amazon. Bloomberg reports that Walmart has “quietly” left one of Google’s key efforts against Amazon, having removed products from the latter’s Shopping Actions website, and also left Google Express,

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China To Displace US As Leading Retail Market

PYMNTS

China is expected to displace the U.S. this year as the leading retail market around the world. According to eMarketer’s worldwide retail and eCommerce forecast, in 2019 China’s total retail sales are forecast to increase 7.5 percent, hitting $5.636 trillion. That compares to retail sales in the U.S. which are projected to increase 3.3 percent to $5.529 trillion.

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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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Dutch Startup Raises $33M For AI In Real Estate

PYMNTS

When Dutch entrepreneur Teun van den Dries started GeoPhy , an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven service that performs real estate valuations, there was nothing like it on the market. When he went to buy a house, Bloomberg reported, the appraiser he used simply asked him how much he thought it should cost. That led him to realize the potential market for his company, which he started in 2014.

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Munchery’s Out, So Who’s In To Travel Food Delivery’s Last Mile?

PYMNTS

Another one has bitten the dust when it comes to providing the vital last-mile delivery service for online consumers (especially the hungry ones). The news that on-demand delivery startup Munchery has closed its doors — even after raising $125 million in venture capital funding — serves as reminder of how difficult it can be to gain a profitable foothold (much less a dominant position) in the on-demand food delivery space.

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Post-GDPR, Deliveroo Probed Over Data Security

PYMNTS

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect May of 2018, has had some serious repercussions on tech companies all over Europe, but especially in the U.K. The latest company to be affected may be food delivery app Deliveroo, according to a report in the Financial Times. The U.K. data protection watchdog is looking into the company after it reported “limited fraudulent activity” on some customers’ accounts.

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Bitcoin Daily: Bitcoin Kiosks At The Supermarket, tZERO To Launch Next Week

PYMNTS

Indonesian ride-hailing company Go-Jek is acquiring a “substantial” number of shares in Philippine-based blockchain services platform Coins.ph. While the details of the transaction were not revealed, it was reported that there will be no impact to Coins.ph customers and that its team “will continue in their existing roles,” according to CoinGeek. “Supporting the success of a local FinTech entrepreneurial champion like Coins.ph, with a similar ambition to empower society through innovation and te

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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.