Sat.Jul 02, 2016 - Fri.Jul 08, 2016

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Philippines-Based Bitcoin Remittance App Enters US Market

PYMNTS

Abra , the bitcoin remittance app, has made its way to the U.S. — via the iPhone and Android app options. What that means is that Abra customers in the U.S. or the Philippines can send money to each other using the app’s digital wallet that works with their bank accounts. The company noted in its release that this is the first move in helping it expand globally.

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How the New Revenue Recognition Rules Could Impact Budgeting and Planning

Planful

To date, most of the focus has been on the transactional accounting impact of the new guidelines. But Robert Kugel , SVP and Research Director at Ventana Research, recently published an article highlighting the impact the new guidelines can have on budgeting and planning. Background – What’s Changing and When? Revenue is one of the most important measures used by investors in assessing a company’s performance.

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Why Paris Has A Heart For FinTech

PYMNTS

In this week’s edition of PYMNTS’ Weekly Tech Center Roundup , we find ourselves back in Europe, where Brexit is all anyone can talk about. But we are heading to France, where the country’s capital city is making a name for itself as a booming tech center. Before we jump into the post, here are a few quick facts about Paris and its tech scene: Paris has an estimated population of 2,241,346.

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Is Lyft Preparing To Sell?

PYMNTS

Ridesharing firm Lyft has been getting ready to capitalize on investor desire to delve into transports and has been exploring raising additional funding or even selling itself to outside interests, Reuters has reported. The newswire said that the firm has been working with investment bank Qatalyst Partners, which is based in Silicon Valley. Reuters cited unnamed people familiar with the dialogue.

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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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Vending Machines Are Retail’s Newest Frontier

PYMNTS

It was only a decade or two ago that you’d be laughed out of the room for suggesting someone buy clothes or shoes online without trying them on first. Now that that barrier has fallen, though, might there be opportunities to sell more traditional products in nontraditional spaces ? Dawn Dickson thinks so, and she had something of a proof of concept in Flat Out of Heels , her company that sells rollable flats out of vending machines aimed at the female consumer who can’t spend another

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Can Smartwatches Make ATM PINs Open To Hackers?

PYMNTS

Time and time again, hackers have proven to be one step ahead. From bitcoin ransoms to EMV security, there are few areas that are out of bounds for the clever crew. A recent research study out of Binghamton University now suggests another potential target for hackers: wearable technology. Wearable technology has been a notable trend since the launch of the Apple Watch in April of 2015, but does donning the trendy tech also put the user at risk of getting their ATM PIN hacked?

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PCI Council Creates New Cyberattack Resources For SMBs

PYMNTS

Aiming to help small businesses protect themselves from payment data theft, the PCI Security Standards Council Small Merchant Taskforce announced Thursday (July 7) that it has developed a suite of payment protection resources geared toward small businesses. The resources are created with simple diagrams and everyday language to take the complexity out of it for small business owners.

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The Pop-Up Shop Boom Is Making Retail Concepts Sillier And Sillier

PYMNTS

Is retail heading to the dogs? Seriously. Have you noticed lately how ridiculous some of the concepts for new retail stores are getting? A renowned New York City chef recently teamed up with Kellogg’s to open a trendy cereal-themed restaurant near Times Square and is selling Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes for $8 or more a bowl. An entire cottage industry has sprung up, both in eCommerce and brick-and-mortar locations, exclusively dedicated to men’s beards and the “art” of grooming them.

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MasterCard’s Smart Cities Now Includes Digital Payments

PYMNTS

MasterCard is partnering with 100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) in order to push digital payments as part of its “ Smart Cities ” initiative and leverage its technologies to create more sustainable urban centers. As part of this partnership, MasterCard will be working with 100RC to push its digital payments agenda in cities by helping people understand the risks associated with a cash-based economy, along with the opportunities that digital paym

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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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Employers: The Other Payday Lender

PYMNTS

The payday lending market is at a bit of a crossroads as regulators flex their regulatory muscles and look to establish new rules for the payday lending industry. While much has been written — on these pages and beyond — about that debate, there are three universal truths about these short-term, small dollar lending products. First, consumers need them and use them.

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Android’s Encryption Woes: Bad For Google, Worse For Everyone Else

PYMNTS

Apple might generate long lines at its stores every time it releases an iterative iPhone, but there’s no doubt that, when it comes to OS market share, Android has been stealing Apple’s lunch money lately. In May, Kantar Worldpanel confirmed that Q1 2016 sales of Android phones had grown in just about every major market that matters — 7.1 percent in Europe, 7.3 percent in the U.S. and 6 percent in China.

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Does A Fatal Crash Mean The End Of The Automated Driving Industry?

PYMNTS

Would you ride in a car driven by a computer? As cool as the idea and concept of automated driving sounds, there are still many people who feel uncomfortable with such a notion or who argue that it will never truly be 100 percent safe. Arguments that were thrust back into the spotlight last week after Tesla revealed that a driver using the Autopilot feature on its Model S was killed on a Florida highway in May after the vehicle drove into a tractor-trailer.

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Apple Pay Comes To Switzerland, Its Second European Country

PYMNTS

Apple isn’t resting on its laurels when it comes to expanding its mobile payment service beyond the U.S. The company announced Thursday (July 7) that Apple Pay has officially entered the Switzerland market. . This marks the first country in Europe outside of the U.K. to start accepting Apple Pay as a payment method. Currently, the service is available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, China and Singapore.

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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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Global Cybergangs Take The ‘Cyber Arms Race’ Lead

PYMNTS

It looks like the use of profitable malware fraud attacks is helping cybercriminals to remain one step ahead of authorities. In the release of its first Cyber Crime Assessment report on Thursday (July 7), the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said that police and businesses are losing the “cyber arms race” to these sophisticated criminals. According to the data, the most significant and advanced threat to the U.K. is actually from a small group of international crooks that use “highly pro

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Could Berlin Steal London’s FinTech Capital Throne?

PYMNTS

As the Brexit fallout continues, it looks as though Berlin may be stepping up to replace London as Europe’s top FinTech capital. With the U.K. making its monumental decision to exit the European Union last week, The Financial Times reported today (July 7) that Germany is hoping to bring England’s startups and entrepreneurs into the fold. “London has committed suicide as a leading FinTech center,” Jochen Siegert, COO of Frankfurt-based payments platform Traxpay, is said to have tweeted.

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Want To Fake A Swiss Watch? Yeah, Maybe Not So Much Anymore.

PYMNTS

As most retailers know, few things can threaten a business’ or a product’s integrity like counterfeiting. But makers of high-end Swiss watches, which can sometimes run upwards of $10,000 or more, now have a new tool to help them guard their brand’s supremacy and fend off would-be counterfeiters — tiny, nanoscopic watermarks that are invisible to the naked eye, impossible to fake and only visible under an ultraviolet light as a hologram.

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Alexa Learns A New Skill – Ordering Millions Of Items Off Amazon

PYMNTS

Alexa , the voice-activated assistant for Amazon’s Echo, got mad skills, yo. Literally. Amazon revealed last week that Alexa has now learned more than 1,400 skills , everything from ordering Ubers to helping you organize a new playlist for the gym. Now you can add another skill to Alexa’s exponentially growing list: the virtual assistant can now be used to orders millions of items from Amazon itself, anything from batteries to deodorant, according to CNET.

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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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Around The World In FinTech Innovation

PYMNTS

Over the past eight weeks PYMNTS has cast a weekly global spotlight on one of the many tech hubs fostering innovation and tech advancements across the world. With big plans to continue growing out the weekly series, we thought it would be a great time to take a look back at all of the tech hubs we’ve highlighted so far. The U.K.’s Technology ‘Hotbed’ Picks Up Steam.

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PYMNTS Daily Data Dive: Apple Pay’s Latest Move

PYMNTS

Apple Pay is officially in play in another country: Switzerland. For Apple, this is the first country in Europe outside of the U.K. to start accepting Apple Pay as a payment method. Currently, the service is available in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, China and Singapore. As for the latest figures that have been shared about how Apple Pay’s growth is coming along, we’ve gathered them in today’s Daily Data Dive 5-in-1. $10.9 Billion | Apple Pay’s usage volume in 20

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European mPOS Player Sees US Opportunity Too Good To Pass Up

PYMNTS

The onset of the EMV liability shift last October didn’t just make ripples in the U.S. market – it also caught the attention of mPOS players across the pond. The massive payment infrastructure overhaul, which came with an estimated $8.65 billion price tag, led U.K based- payleven and SumUp , two mobile point of sale solution providers, to invest in the U.S. market.

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Inside The Mind Of The Matchmaker

PYMNTS

Matchmakers are the type of business that dares to go where many other businesses refuse to even try: as the intermediary that matches customers with a need with customers who can meet their needs. It only looks easy. Uber, Google, Visa, Airbnb, Facebook, Westfield Malls, NASDAQ and Microsoft are all matchmakers who’ve cracked the code on getting a critical mass of customers on board.

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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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Apple’s Spotify Subscription Rules Spat

PYMNTS

Tech giant Apple has issued a heated three-page response to a letter from streaming music company Spotify which had accused Apple of putting in place App Store policies that are ‘anticompetitive.’. Spotify had sent the ‘anticompetitive’ accusation letter to Apple earlier last week, after Apple blocked an update to Spotify’s iOS app, allegedly to thwart any potential competition to its Apple Music service.

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Economic Turmoil Propels SME Crowdfunding In Brazil

PYMNTS

There may be one bright spot for Brazil’s financial services industry as political and economic turmoil rattle the nation. Reports by Newsweek on Friday (July 1) said entrepreneurs are looking to online funding, crowdfunding and alternative lending to start their businesses as Brazil endures its worst economic recession in decades. One company operating in this market is Kickante, whose founder, Candice Pascoal, said she was inspired by U.S. crowdfunding sites Indiegogo and Kickstarter b

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Treasurers, CFOs Raising Their Payments Expectations

PYMNTS

Corporate treasurers and chief financial officers are on the hunt for a better way to make payments, especially internationally. That’s according to corporate software firm FIS , which published the findings of its latest survey on corporate payments needs last week. According to the data, more than half (53 percent) of treasurers said they have standardized at least three-quarters of their payments volumes.

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UPS Lockers Will Make It Easier To Pick Up Packages

PYMNTS

Ever had a UPS delivery that you’ve missed because you were working, out running errands, or had some other perfectly normal reason why you were not at home between the typical 9-5 hours? Or maybe you live in an apartment that UPS can’t access or an address that UPS doesn’t ship to. We all know how annoying missing a UPS package can be (because, of course, you have to drive miles and miles out of your way to the warehouse, which seemingly can only be accessed during certain late night and

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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.