Sat.Jul 22, 2017 - Fri.Jul 28, 2017

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AI/BOTS: Machine Learning Tips Online Fraud Scales

PYMNTS

Technological advances are pushing the boundaries for what’s possible in a variety of industries. Within the retail industry specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) is moving the ball for a lot of merchants looking to not only streamline their business operations but provide a more personalized experience for consumers. Stemming from AI, machine learning is helping technology move at a swifter rate, and as more people bring their shopping needs into the online world, it’s likely that machine

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What Are Finance Transformation Best Practices?

Planful

These and other questions were the focus of a recent blog by Planful. Based on our work with over 800 customers on Finance process transformation, we shared Finance best practices and even held a discussion with two of those customers. Here are seven traits common in organizations that have successfully executed Finance function transformation and moved from back-office scorekeeping to becoming strategic business partners, driving and supporting decision-making across the enterprise.

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Trending Sources

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Chatbots: Friend Or Foe Of Retail?

PYMNTS

Automation has come to several industries. From manufacturing to customer service, there have been several parts of today’s workforce that have been automated by some form of smart technology. One in four Americans are currently at risk of having their jobs automated, according to a research paper from Ball State University, “ How Vulnerable are American Communities to Automation, Trade, and Urbanization?

Retail 71
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PayBee Launches To Digitize AR For Indian SMEs

PYMNTS

A new company is launching in India to support accounts receivable and invoice management for businesses. Announcing its rollout on Tuesday (July 25), PayBee said it is looking to digitize the B2B payments process to help companies enhance cash flow management. The company said it integrates with existing accounting, ERP and distribution management solutions already in place within business clients.

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Why Tech-Forward Tax and Accounting Firms Have the Inside Track to the Future

Speaker: Joe Wroblewski, Sales Engineer Manager

Automating time-consuming manual tasks can save your firm hundreds of hours–and thousands of dollars. But it can also have longer-lasting benefits, like helping you attract and retain the next generation of CPAs, and we don’t need to tell you how important that is amid the current generational staffing crisis in the tax and accounting profession. You'll want to save your seat for this new webinar with industry expert Joe Wroblewski, where we'll explore how to: Maximize ROI with Cost-Effective Te

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Cashless Society, Crossing Borders

PYMNTS

The cashless payments movement has a calendar attached to it, at least in China. Cashless Week in China is little more than a week away — running Aug. 1 through Aug. 8 — as Ant Financial Services Group announced earlier this year. The cash-free week will see the firm encouraging China to embrace digital payments, an offshoot of the company’s goal to make China as cashless as possible in five years — using Alipay as a springboard, of course.

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USAT Raises $43.1M In Underwritten Public Offering

PYMNTS

USA Technologies, the payment technology service provider of integrated cashless and mobile transactions in the self-service retail market, announced news Tuesday (July 25) of the closing of its underwritten public offering of 9,583,332 shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $4.50 per share. In a press release, the company said the foregoing included the full exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase 1,249,999 additional shares from USA Technologies (USAT).

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EML Lends Virtual Payments To Mize Houser Franchise AP Solution

PYMNTS

EML Payments is integrating its virtual payment capabilities into the accounts payable solutions offered by Mize Houser as the two look to help companies replace paper checks in B2B payments with virtual or ACH. Mize Houser provides accounting and AP solutions to franchisee owners; according to an announcement Tuesday (July 25), the company will begin offering those clients virtual payment capabilities to pay suppliers using EML Payments technology.

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Bitcoin Makes The Split

PYMNTS

Bitcoin has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the past year when it comes to both stock price and mainstream adoption. While the cryptocurrency is struggling to gain traction, there’s been talk brewing of a rival bitcoin being developed to compete against it. Reasons for the new bitcoin competitor stem from many believing it’s not where it should be at this point in time.

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The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Impacted

PYMNTS

Talking about retail and not mention Amazon these days is a difficult thing to do. Amazon seems to pop up in almost any conversation touching the topic. As such, it should come as no surprise that there may not be a single day in the past few years without mention of Amazon in some capacity. The eCommerce company has grown significantly in the past few decades, and we’ve started to see the physical impacts of its innovative force on other retailers.

Retail 53
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Live Demo - Supercharge your Month End Close

Automation generally supercharges any process and brings its value to the forefront. See how infusing automation such as ART (our month-end close solution), into your close can get you to the next level of closing. We will share a live demo of SkyStem's solution, ART and share the key elements of month-end close automation. Through ART, we'll take a look at: What month-end close automation entails Which process steps can and should be automated Benefits of achieving process automation, and Why i

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Brick And Mortar’s Technology Evolution

PYMNTS

Technology has certainly seen a big evolution over the last few decades. In the consumer world, we’ve moved from large desktops and rotary dial phones to razor-thin laptops and smartphones with 10 times the amount of computing power. With each new gadget faster than the one before it, consumers’ expectations for retail interactions have seen a significant shift.

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EBA Clearing Adds UniCredit To Instant Payments Service

PYMNTS

As EBA Clearing continues to test its real-time, cross-border payments solution, the firm has announced another financial services company on-boarded to the service. UniCredit, based in Italy, said it is testing the RT1 pan-European instant payment solution developed by EBA Clearing, reports said Tuesday (July 25). The firms said UniCredit’s testing of the platform makes it one of the first banks to begin preparing for the rollout of the solution later this year.

Banking 51
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For Better Or Worse, Customer Service IS The Brand

PYMNTS

A good product at a good price: that used to be the recipe for a good brand. But a third ingredient in retail is quickly overshadowing those bastions of success, and that is customer service. Consumers want a seamless shopping experience, and if they don’t have one, they want someone to make it right post-haste. Payments can be one of the areas of greatest friction for eCommerce players, especially if they operate globally and need to handle many different forms of payment.

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The Art Of Business In The Online Art Marketplace

PYMNTS

For many years, as communication, commerce and even crafting (see: Etsy, Pinterest) migrated to digital spaces, the art world stayed behind, lingering in brick-and-mortar museums, galleries and auction halls. People thought no one would ever buy art online, sight-unseen. They were wrong. “The art world has been one of the industries most resistant to change and to moving online,” said Anna Carey, a spokeswoman for the online art marketplace Artsy , a global platform for discovering and collecti

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Mid-Year Review: How to Ignite Employee Potential Through Meaningful Feedback

Mid-year performance reviews aren’t just boxes for HR to check. Paycor’s toolkit empowers leaders to: Identify high-potential team members. Boost engagement with meaningful feedback. Support struggling employees. Nurture top talent to drive results. Learn how to ignite employee potential through meaningful feedback. When you nurture top talent, everybody wins.

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Visa And Marqeta To Transform Global Card Issuance

PYMNTS

If the payments landscape is marked by entrenched players partnering with smaller firms making their mark in digital payments, add one more deal to the list. Visa announced news today of a global partnership with Marqeta , the open API issuer/processor platform that they’ve been working with over the past two years, that will now expand the universe of use cases for the instant issuance of physical, virtual and tokenized payments.

B2B 50
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Bitcoin Tracker: How Secure Are Bitcoins?

PYMNTS

Security in the digital age is a goal for most retailers and consumers — and nearly everyone else in the business world. When it comes to personal information, especially data linked to payment accounts, the level of privacy and accuracy of security are key in keeping the retail world spinning. Once bank accounts or credit cards are hacked, either online or at big box stores, trust in the payment processing system can dwindle — and that trust can become difficult to build back up.

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Procurement, Finance Teams Are Not On The Same Page

PYMNTS

The B2B FinTech world hears it time and time again: eProcurement is becoming a strategic part of the enterprise. Strategic supplier management , contract negotiations, electronic sourcing and transacting — these are all ways the procurement functions can, in theory, generate savings that promote a more robust bottom line and healthier cash flow for the enterprise.

Finance 49
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ezyCollect Targets Micro Firms With Unpaid Invoice Services

PYMNTS

Small business accounting platform MYOB is helping some clients chase down unpaid invoices through a new partnership with ezyCollect. The companies revealed their collaboration Monday (July 24), announcing plans for MYOB Essentials to offer ezyCollect services to users. “Small business owners are busy and stressed out,” said A.J. Singh, managing director of ezyCollect in a statement. “They can’t afford to lose a day, a week, chasing money that is owed to them.” Sing

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Your Accounting Expertise Will Only Get You So Far: What Really Matters

Speaker: Victor C. Barnes, CPA, MBA

In the climb from contributor to leader, the rules quietly change. If you’re aiming for the summit, the air gets thinner—and what got you here won’t be enough to get you to the top (a concept first popularized by Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There ). What made you successful early in your finance career—technical accuracy, sharp analysis, flawless execution—won’t be what carries you to the next level.

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Gas Station Skimmers Can Send Stolen Data Via SMS

PYMNTS

Police have discovered a new credit card skimmer that connects to the inside of a gas station pump and is able to send stolen data via SMS. According to Tech Crunch , thieves tear apart cheap phones and send credit card information to their location instantly without having to access the skimmer physically or rely on an open Bluetooth connection. Brian Krebs of Krebson Security received images of the skimmer — found at a gas station in the Northeast — from an unnamed source.

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Will Smarter Robots Give eCommerce A Boost?

PYMNTS

The next great robotic breakthrough is upon us — according to recent Wall Street Journa l reports, it’s a machine that can pick up a toy and place it in a box correctly. Admittedly it’s a bit more exciting than it sounds, since it may sound like science has designed robots to have the net skill level of a five-year-old human child. But, as it turns out, that simple skill and figuring it out has been a major hurdle to automating warehouse work.

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With CNP Fraud, Vigilance Is Only Part Of The Battle

PYMNTS

The impact of online fraud reaches far beyond the dollar count of sales lost. . When data breaches occur, jobs are on the line from the CIO down to lower-level IT personnel. . And the damage to trust and confidence on the part of consumers can be incalculable. To paraphrase an investing maxim, a company can be built up over decades and destroyed in minutes. .

Retail 48
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What’s Fast And Slow And Read All Over?

PYMNTS

Innovative ideas are inspired by smart people who see problems and have the conviction, capital and courage to come up with new ways to solve for them. Take faster payments. One such innovator recognized the vast commerce potential that could be unlocked if new technologies were used to move money and messaging between people in near real-time. The grandness of his vision and success, with a proof of concept, prompted him to reach out to the U.S. government to share his ideas.

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The Hidden Science Behind Why Finance Teams Resist Change—And How to Fix It

Speaker: Kim Beynon, CPA, CGMA, PMP

The most overlooked, yet most critical, element of transformation is preparing people for change. Automation and AI aren't just technical upgrades, they’re cultural shifts which can challenge identities. That’s why change management isn’t a side project—it’s the foundation. In finance, where precision and process rule, navigating change can feel especially disruptive.

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Ordering Pizza Looks Easy, But It’s Not — Here’s Why

PYMNTS

Many platforms want a slice of the digital pizza-ordering pie. Few, however, are equipped to dish up the kind of experience consumers demand. Pizza seems like a simple takeout meal from the customer’s end, and that’s how it should be — but it’s not as easy as it looks. Pizza is one of the most highly customizable foods, with a practically infinite combination of toppings.

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NEW REPORT: Getting SMBs Ready, Set, Going On Mobile Order-Ahead

PYMNTS

Modern innovations have made technology from smartphones and mobile ordering apps to even virtual reality, well, a reality. Now that this technology is in the hands of consumers around the world, companies are increasingly counting on it to attract new customers and retain existing ones. . In the July Payments as a Service Tracker™ , PYMNTS explores how the latest payment solutions are helping merchants give their customer speedier and simpler solutions — all in an effort to win the business

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NEW REPORT: From Apps To Amazon, Why TGI Fridays Is All In On Mobile Order-Ahead

PYMNTS

The mobile revolution has hit the dining industry and is becoming a staple for QSRs, fast casual restaurants and beyond. And recently, some brands that have already introduced and found success through mobile ordering apps are experimenting with expanding mobile ordering real estate. . The latest PYMNTS Mobile Order-Ahead Tracker™ features news on restaurants around the space expanding their use of mobile order-ahead smart technology to entice new customers and offer improved ordering experie

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Winning The Coffee Competition

PYMNTS

Few brands have become as synonymous with what they sell as Starbucks has. When people think coffee – there is almost a reflexive action to think of Starbucks. Sure they have their occasional dalliances with the stunty marketing beverage – baristas nationwide are still reportedly recovering from the national horror that was the Unicorn Frappucino in April.

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Doing More With Less: The Modern Finance Miracle

Speaker: Mark Gilham, FCCA, CPP

Finance used to be the function that counted, now it's the one that’s counted on. 📊 For accounting firms, controllers, and finance leaders, expectations are rising faster than headcount. Businesses want agile forecasts, granular analysis, seamless reporting, and smart automation—often without added resources while demanding uncompromised accuracy and compliance.