Last week, today May 17: News in payments and fintech

Our bi-weekly news roundup collects some of the headlines in payments and fintech to watch, giving leaders across industries (or fintech enthusiasts) a quick glance at some of the news in the space. In Flywire’s 10+ years in delivering the most complex, high value payments, we’ve had a unique opportunity to work with many different organizations in the fintech and payments ecosystem. We’ve seen changes in how clients get paid, how their customers want to pay and how central the payments experience has become – not just across the industries we focus on, but every industry.

Here are some of the payments and fintech headlines from May 4 - May 17.

Headlines

Reuters Exclusive: U.S. “open banking” rule bogged down by privacy concerns - sources - Reuters
A White House push for rules that would spur open banking by making it easier for consumers to share financial data with third-parties is being stalled by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau’s concerns about protecting consumers' private information, according to Reuters. Chief among the concerns is how Big Tech companies could use the data.

Google’s payments strategy is taking another twist as it battles Apple - Protocol
Speaking of Big Tech, Google made a couple of big payments-related announcements at its Google I/O annual conference last week. It will support virtual card functionality at the browser level, and also took some steps to simplify some security and integration concerns raised by developers. This includes work to ease adoption of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements by enabling users to bind payment information and verification to their devices using biometrics and device pins, as well as debuting an open source repository for code samples for popular PSP integrations.

Visa, Mastercard spurred by return to travel - FXC Intelligence
Cross-border volume increases linked to a return to travel spelled good news for Visa and Mastercard, who reported strong net revenue growth on recent earnings calls. Visa’s CFO pointed to “the robust cross-border travel recovery” and that “pent-up demand for travel remains very high.” And Mastercard’s CEO said “cross-border travel reached 2019 levels as of March for the first time since the pandemic began.”

BNPL Providers Defy Skeptics with Dearth of Defaults - PYMNTS.com
PYMNTS.com suggests that concerns about widespread delinquencies in buy now, pay later (BNPL) may be exaggerated.

FASB to Consider Setting Rules on Companies’ Crypto Accounting Disclosure - Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. accounting standard-setter voted to consider setting rules on the accounting and disclosure of digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Mastercard Says to Boost Cash Flow, ‘Peace of Mind,’ B2B Payments Must Be Invisible - PYMNTS.com
Chad Wallace, two months into his new role as EVP of business solutions at Mastercard, talks about the “low hanging fruit in business payments ripe for modernization.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Pushes for Stablecoin Regulation by End of Year - TechCrunch
Calling for a “consistent federal framework,” the U.S. Treasury Secretary pushed for regulation during an annual testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee recently.

From Flywire

Flywire Survey: B2B Finance Professionals Look to Payment Process Improvements to Help Accelerate Profitability
We surveyed more than 300 finance professionals about their challenges with processing and receiving payments. Check out the major findings in our Pulse on Payments: 2022 B2B Payments Outlook.

Flywire lands on Inc. Best Workplaces 2022
FlyMates already know Flywire is one the best companies to work for – and now, Inc. has made it official. For the first time in our 10 year history, Flywire made the Inc. Best Workplaces 2022 list.

3 B2B payment stats that make the case for automated accounts receivables
Here’s the thing: no amount of “transformational” finance technology will be able to do its job if more of the receivables process isn’t automated, so that data is accurate and accessible in one place and time can be spent on outliers and strategic endeavors.

Flywire in the News: Billtrust, Flywire results show B2B payments modernization continues, cards gain acceptance - PYMNTS
Recent earnings calls and reports of both fintech companies show “that companies across all manner of verticals are moving toward platforms to enhance their payments functionalities and embrace card payments,” PYMNTS.com reports.

Inside Flywire: Hear from our Flymates
Finishing out a series of videos in which Flymates briefly share their view on some of the values that drive our company forward, hear about the values of fulfillment and global collaboration.

Report of the week

Key Takeaways from the Women in Payments Symposium - FXC Intelligence
FXC Intelligence Research Analyst Valentina Vitali talks about what happened at the annual Women in Payments Symposium in Spain. The event provides perspectives from key women leaders in payments, supports diversity and gender parity, and includes topics impacting all aspects of the payments ecosystem.

Stat of the week

82% - The percentage of Gen Z students who plan to work full (23%) or part-time (59%) while attending higher ed to help pay for it.
-College Savings Foundation 13th annual survey

Conversation starter

Game on - Looking to make a case for the value of playing video games? See the Wall Street Journal’s The Not Terrible News About Video Games and Your Kids Brain and click on over to news of Truist’s recent acquisition of Long Game, a fintech startup that uses gamification to help drive financial literacy.