Sat.Oct 15, 2016 - Fri.Oct 21, 2016

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Weird Commerce: MUFON, Investigating UFOs Since 1969

PYMNTS

Ever seen a UFO? Could it have really been a bird, plane or you-know-who? That’s where 47-year-old nonprofit MUFON comes in to debunk or detail what you saw. “Sometimes, people say they saw a UFO, and immediately, people think they said, ‘I saw a flying saucer,’” said Rodger Roeser, spokesperson for MUFON, which literally investigates unidentified flying objects.

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Finance Is Moving to the Cloud – How and Why?

Planful

There is encouraging news that correlates with surveys of Finance executives on the adoption of and interest in cloud-based applications. Adoption appears to be accelerating as Finance departments are becoming more confident in the security of cloud applications and more aware of the benefits. Gartner Sees the Tipping Point. So what did the Gartner research note say?

Finance 40
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Why Retailers Should Look For More From Their Vendors

PYMNTS

Out of the ever-growing list of things retailers have as priorities, stopping fraud — not selling more goods and services — has now claimed the online retailer’s top spot. That’s the finding of Forrester’s 2016 “State of Retail Payments 2016” report. Michael Reitblat , CEO of Forter , isn’t at all surprised. The mere increase in the number of fraud attempts year over year and quarter over quarter is enough to shake even the most hardened eTailer to her knees.

Retail 81
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Visa Announces New B2B Payments Using Blockchain

PYMNTS

Visa and Chain today [October 21] announced that Visa B2B Connect – a B2B payment platform based on blockchain – will be piloted in 2017. Visa hopes that Visa B2B Connect will give financial institutions fast and secure processing of global B2B payments. The announcement of B2B Connect also marks the second stage of Visa’s relationship with Chain.

B2B 80
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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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Visa, Ingo Money Make B2P Payments Instant

PYMNTS

The world is full of once-brilliant innovations that — despite having been supplanted by an even better innovation — continue to have devotees who insist the 1.0 version was actually superior: Writers who prefer the feel of a typewriter to a computer. Music aficionados who swear that digital distorts the sound of music. And there’s the paper check — a 1.0 solution in a world of digital payments that continues to stick around.

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New Technology Brings Password Transmission Through Skin

PYMNTS

Researchers at The University of Washington’s Networks and Mobile Systems Lab are experimenting with technology that sends signals such as passcodes through the skin. Touchpads and fingerprint readers create the signals that are then transmitted through the body. Unlike wireless broadcasts, these electrical transmissions cannot be intercepted in the air.

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Smart Grids Aren’t Secure, Survey Says

PYMNTS

A new survey from Tripwire , a global provider of security and compliance solutions for enterprises and industrial organizations, revealed that 98 percent of professionals in the IT field believe that smart cities are vulnerable to cyberattacks. More than 200 IT professionals working for state and local governments took part in the survey, which was conducted by Dimensional Research.

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Mobile Is On The Rise, But Still Not Where Retailers Would Like It

PYMNTS

Mobile is one of the fastest-growing retail sectors at the moment and still projects to grow for years to come, but the technology is still not where most retailers want it. Currently, smartphone users make up about 64 percent of the U.S. population, but that number is expected to grow to 72.2 percent by 2020, according to Astound Commerce’s 2016 Mobile Research Report.

Retail 78
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WISeKey Delivers AI To IoT Cybersecurity Platform

PYMNTS

Cybersecurity and IoT company WISeKey announced on Wednesday (Oct. 19) that its new platform called WISeAI – a problem-solving Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) solution – will be integrated into the company’s existing Vertical Platform. The WISeKey Vertical Platform enables IoT devices to organize themselves into trusted networks based on criteria such as mutual authentication, identity and integrity.

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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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Banks Dreading The Real-Time Payments Challenge

PYMNTS

Banks may not like it, but the demand is here for faster payments — from businesses, consumers and regulators alike. While they’re apprehensive about the technology, financial institutions are facing pressure to adopt real-time payments capabilities to meet that demand and to comply with new regulations. In Europe, the driving force behind faster payments is the revised Payment Services Directive , or PSD2, which now includes third-party payment players under its scope.

Banking 77
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SMEs Forced To Live With New Normal Of Cyberattacks

PYMNTS

The price tag attached to a data breach on a small business has increased this year, according to new analysis from IBM and Ponemon Institute. With their newly released “ 2016 Cost of Data Breach: Canada ” report, the firms examined the financial impact of data breaches on 24 companies in Canada to assess the damage. In the context of separate research that found SMEs in the U.S. are dreadfully unprepared for a cyberattack, IBM and Ponemon’s report is an alarming reminder that

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Investors Open Their Wallets For B2B Payments Efficiency

PYMNTS

It was another stellar week for B2B FinTech startups, which announced a collective $191.8 million in venture capital and growth equity investment this week. Funding rounds this week were all about the startups that help businesses get paid faster, through more channels, more securely, regardless of geographical location. Plus, there was yet another appearance from an alternative SME lender (this time from the Philippines) and new financial backing for an SME banking disruptor and a payroll playe

B2B 77
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Tech Brings Cash Forecasting Power To Small Biz

PYMNTS

Cash flow forecasting technology was once only for the massive enterprise, with resources aplenty to invest in such tools and the internal expertise to understand the complexity of it all. But cash forecasting is democratizing to smaller companies thanks to incoming technology, said TreasuryXpress CEO Anis Rahal. He told PYMNTS how forecasting technology is evolving into an incorporated part of the B2B payments process and why that’s a capability SMEs might want to keep an eye on.

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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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Chatbot Tracker: The Greats, The Bums And The ‘Now What?’

PYMNTS

There’s no doubt that, most of the time, chatbots are beneficial to the future of online commerce, payments and interaction with consumers. While not fully mainstream — most customers don’t even realize they’re connected to a bot — they do seem to be popping up everywhere. First, let’s talk about all those wonderful benefits and joys the chatbots bring to our lives.

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Technology: SME Friend And Foe

PYMNTS

Technology has the power to help a business rise up from the competition. From spend data analytics to cybersecurity detection, innovative tools in FinTech enable companies to gain visibility into the performance of their business. Small businesses, too, have an appetite for technology. But for smaller companies, procuring technology can be a financial and administrative burden, and a lot of times, the problems that can be solved with technology were created by technology in the first place.

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Are New Prepaid Card Regulations Too Much?

PYMNTS

Could this be a case of good intentions gone awry? Time will tell. According to Brad Fauss, president and CEO of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association, the recently released regulations on prepaid cards from the Consumer Finance Protection Board could be another instance of good intentions gone wrong. PYMNTS recently caught up with Fauss as he and his team were working their way through the more than 1,700 pages of the recently released regulations.

Banking 76
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Modernizing The Cross-Border Payments Platform … And Process

PYMNTS

The latest investment news in the B2B space shows that cross-border transactions are shaping up to be big business — especially for the firms that operate the networks across which payments travel. As reported Tuesday (Oct. 18), PayCommerce, which operates a platform across which more than 90 banks interact across 75 countries, has received a $22 million Series B investment from Tritium Partners.

B2B 76
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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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Why Starting Off Small Can Keep Businesses From Growing

PYMNTS

It’s a familiar story. Small retailer makes a decision on anything — IT and hosting services, telephone services, accounting and tax services, POS hardware, etc. — based on what it needs at the moment. Two years and a location (or two dozen later), those decisions are at risk of keeping that business from ever getting beyond the small stage its sales and success want to take it.

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“RegTech” AI: SMEs And Banks To Benefit

PYMNTS

Traders might start to sense that someone is constantly watching over their shoulders. AI is being applied to the world of regulation, or “RegTech,” and a new system can monitor the trading behavior of fund managers and even alert compliance bodies if questionable activity is detected. The UK chancellor George Osborne coined the term in the last budget claiming that the new policy would support “new technologies to facilitate the delivery of regulatory requirements” to the financial services sec

Banking 76
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First Data: One Year After The IPO

PYMNTS

Last Saturday — October 15, 2016 — was the one-year anniversary of the First Data IPO. Now, admittedly, calling 2016 a “first year” for First Data is something of a stretch. First Data was first incorporated in 1971, so it is actually 45 years young. And it wasn’t even technically First Data’s first year as a publicly traded company either. From 1992 to 2007, it traded on the NYSE before being taken private by KKR.

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3D Secure 2.0: How Card Issuers Can Prepare

PYMNTS

To attend this live digital discussion on Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at 1:00 PM (EST), please complete the registration form shown below: [contact-form-7]. 3D Secure 2.0 ’s impact on the financial industry will be one of the most significant in recent years. Built around the increasing popularity of mobile commerce, 3D Secure 2.0 is predicated on risk-based authentication, leveraging data points for accurate verification, while optimizing the consumer experience.

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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.

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Slight September Slowdown In US eCommerce Sales

PYMNTS

The latest retail sales statistics from the United States Commerce Department show that eCommerce is still growing, albeit at a slower pace than has been seen recently. Overall, retail sales defined as “non-store” (read: online) were up 10.6 percent last month.The total dollar value came in at just under $47 billion, with a slight slide in the growth rate as compared to the previous month.

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Deloitte Launches Enterprise Tech Incubator

PYMNTS

Deloitte has rolled out a new initiative to help its business clients adopt disruptive technologies. The company announced Monday (Oct. 17) the launch of Deloitte Catalyst , a group of startups that explores how technologies, like blockchain and Internet of Things, can be used for business applications. Those use cases include document review automation, language processing and generation, data management, machine intelligence, distributed ledger and other technologies for the enterprise.

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Eved Adds Spend Analytics To Event Procurement

PYMNTS

Eved specializes in corporate event procurement and spend management, having introduced EvedPay last year to streamline supplier payments for businesses’ event planners. On Friday (Oct. 14), the company added a new feature to its suite of corporate event financial management solutions, Eved Data Insights. The tool allows companies and their event planning teams to access reports and data analytics into their event spend. “Evaluating enterprise-level event spend is incredibly complex,

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SMEs Put Faith In Outsourced Cybersecurity

PYMNTS

The majority of small businesses are not only aware of cyberthreats to their businesses but actually expect to be hit with a cyberattack at some point. A new report by Kaspersky Lab finds that, with so many small businesses understanding the threat of cyberattacks, yet with few resources to allocate towards cybersecurity, SMEs are beginning to turn to security outsourcing to safeguard their businesses. “The report shows that SMBs currently face a number of challenges when it comes to prote

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Tariffs on the Table: How to Brief the Board and C‑Suite With Confidence

“What should we do about the tariffs?” There’s no straightforward answer — every leader has a different expectation. CFOs want numbers. COOs want action. CEOs want strategy. And supply chain and procurement leaders need to be ready with the right response — fast. That’s why GEP has created a simple three-part framework that will help CPOs and CSCOs brief the board and C-suite with clarity and confidence.