Last week, today, Feb. 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.

Headlines

Beyond Silicon Valley, Spending on Technology is Resilient - The New York Times
The New York Times points to an IDC poll of technology managers that found while 82% expected a recession, 62% also said that technology spending would remain the same or increase compared to 2022.

Bank of America Sets Record-Breaking Year for Patents Granted in 2022 - Bank of America
The bank received 608 patents in 2022, a 19% increase year-over-year and the most granted US patents among financial services competitors, according to a press release. Patents were granted across artificial intelligence, machine learning, information security, data analytics, mobile banking and payments – with 14% being in payments technology.

Banks Are Breaking Up With Crypto During Regulatory Crackdown - The Wall Street Journal
Banks, weighing moves by regulators that are putting pressure on crypto businesses, are starting to soften relationships or cut ties altogether.

Back to the future with Worldpay - PaymentsDive.com
Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) will spin off Worldpay, which it acquired in 2019, with plans to create two separate publicly-traded companies, and bring back the former CEO, according to PaymentsDive.

3 Strategies to Prioritize Accounts Receivable Management - Provider
The author, a director of financial services at a skilled nursing facility, writes that “Accounts receivable should not be treated as the drop-off point in the revenue cycle, or the project to be worked on when you have 10 minutes to spare. A facility’s aging A/R is money earned through quality care; it is due to the facility, and it needs to be collected.”

JPMorgan Payments Sees Dawn of ‘Treasurer as Influencer’ Era as Focus Shifts to Profits - PYMNTS.com
Julie Lubell, global head of Trends and Advisory at J.P. Morgan Payments, shares five trends that are shaping the bank’s approach to payments in 2023 and beyond.

From Flywire

7 things to consider when picking a B2B cross-border payments solution
We put together a B2B cross-border payments checklist, giving a quick view of some of the core payment capabilities any business needs to have when serving customers internationally.

Frans Wiwanto: Solving Compliance Challenges With Growth Centric Approach - CEO Insights Asia
CEO Insights talks with Flywire’s Frans Wiwanto, who discusses Flywire’s business, payment security leadership and shares a bit about himself.

The Power 300 Financial Technology Companies of 2023 - The Financial Technology Report
The Financial Technology Report named Flywire to its Power 300 Financial Technology Companies of 2023, selected based on a wide range of criteria including the quality of solutions, market adoption, organizational depth, management team caliber, company culture, investor backing and more.

In 2023, payments will provide momentum for open banking adoption
- FinTech Futures
This byline, by Flywire’s senior payments manager in EMEA, Giles Rowlinson, looks at some of the challenges and opportunities presented by Open Banking in 2023.

Stat of the week

800,000+ - the number of international students coming to Canada to study in 2022, a record high.

Report of the week

The number of CFOs who are women hits an all-time high

From the Crist Volatility Report comes data showing that the number of CFOs who are women has nearly doubled over the past decade. They now make up 16% of CFOs at the 650 companies the executive recruiting firm analyzes, drawn from the Fortune 500 and S&P companies.

Word of the week

A.I. generated text -the product of large language models like ChatGPT, that makes choices based on “complex math and huge amounts of data. So much that it often produces text that is both coherent and accurate.” This New York Times article walks through how it generates that text– and the many issues it could present.

Conversation starter

St. Joe’s to go “fully paperless” after misdirected faxes, privacy breaches - The Hamilton Spectator
Misdirected faxes were the driver of hundreds of unauthorized disclosures of personal health information named in a review by Ontario’s privacy commissioner. The culprit? Health records were faxed to once accurate but since changed fax numbers at patients’ primary care providers.