Last week, today April 5: 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 fintech and payments headlines from March 23- April 5.

Headlines

Apple Working to Bring More Financial Services In-House - Bloomberg
Bloomberg reported that Apple Inc. is developing its own payment processing technology and infrastructure for future financial products – including payment processing, risk assessment for lending, fraud analysis, credit checks and additional customer-service functions.

Securing the Future of Payments: PCI SSC Publishes PCI Data Security Standard 4.0 - PCI Security Standards Council
The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), a global payment security forum, published the anticipated version 4.0 of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) last week. Flywire was one of the organizations weighing in on the updates to the payment security standards – which are significant – and will require heavy lifting for organizations within its scope.

The growth of African neobanks - FXC intelligence
Emerging markets such as Africa have been rapidly evolving in digital-first financial services, including digital banking and payments, according to FXC intelligence.

Will financial technology startups dodge the venture slowdown? - TechCrunch
Bringing together recent trends and some of the data in PitchBook’s 2021 Annual Fintech Report, TechCrunch posits on whether fintech is immune from talk of a venture funding slowdown. PitchBook found that the fintech industry raised $121.6 billion last year — up 153% year-over-year in terms of global VC deal value.

Unpacking The Embedded Payments Business Case For B2B Platforms - Forbes
451 Research’s Jordan McKee makes a case for the value of embedded payments in B2B software, writing that “payments has emerged as one of the most logical and high-impact expansion strategies for B2B software platforms.”

The Cost of Fraud: B2B Payments Experience 10% Increase During the Pandemic - Mercator Advisory Group
New research from the analyst firm explores increasingly sophisticated trends in commercial payments fraud and provides fraud prevention strategies.

From Flywire

The No Surprises Act - Some helpful resources for healthcare providers

In part three of a series on the No Surprises Act, Flywire EVP and GM of Healthcare John Talaga offers some top resources for navigating the law’s complexities.

Flywire in the news: 24% of travel, tourism CFOs say slow payment is a top challenge
Most large companies in the travel and tourism sectors are unhappy with their approaches to payments management, PYMNTS research found, with a majority of financial leaders in these sectors rating their firms’ payments operations as only “somewhat” effective. One in 10 say their systems are ineffective.

Flywire in the news: The Top 50 Financial Technology CEOs of 2022
Flywire CEO Mike Massaro landed on the list of the Top 50 Financial Technology CEOs of 2022. The Financial Technology Report’s annual list represents some of the most accomplished and innovative leaders in the sector.

Report of the week

Behind the 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100 - FXC intelligence
Breaking down data from its 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100, the FXC intelligence team takes a closer look at the companies on the list to identify key industry trends for 2022. The Cross-Border Payments 100 recognizes the most important companies making moves in the cross-border payments space.

Stat of the week

74% millennial consumers would switch providers for a better healthcare payments experience

Source: InstaMed’s 12th annual Trends in Healthcare Payments Report

Conversation starter

Florida, Texas Lead Nation in Tech Job Gains - Wall Street Journal
In both Texas and Florida, net tech employment grew twice as fast in 2021 as it did in California, according to a report from IT trade association CompTIA. Employers across the United States hired roughly 80,000 tech workers in 2021 vs. 77,000 in 2020.