Dec. 20, 2018

Fair, a Santa Monica, California-based car subscription service for consumers and Uber drivers, says it has raised $385 million in Series B financing led by Softbank.

Additional investors include Exponential Ventures, Munich Re Ergo Digital Ventures, G Squared and CreditEase.

Fair said the funding will be used to scale up its consumer business and its Uber partnership, which allows drivers to pay for vehicles without costly long-term commitments.

"We're in the midst of a transformational shift as consumers choose to access service over ownership," Fair CEO and founder Scott Painter said in the announcement. "This financing signals that Fair will be a critical and enduring component of this transition in mobility as we replace the decades-old, debt-based system of car buying with a payments platform that's simple, affordable and flexible."

Since launching the service in August 2017, the company has provided vehicles for 20,000 users through 3,000 dealer partners in 26 markets across the country.

In February, the company began a partnership with Uber that allows drivers to pay for use of the car within the ride-sharing app, drive it on a weekly basis and walk away without a long-term commitment, according to the release. Manik Gupta, chief product officer at Uber, said the company plans to expand its partnership with Fair around the globe.

Topics: Financial News, Mobile Apps, Mobile Payments, Online Purchasing

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Dec. 20, 2018

Earnin, the mobile pay app that lets anyone with a job and bank account get paid instantly, has raised $125 million in Series C financing from a group of investors including DST Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, March Capital Partners, Coatue Management and Ribbit Capital, according to a company release.

The a16z Cultural Leadership Fund is also participating as an investor, according to the  release.

Earnin, launched in 2014, allows users to instantly get funds they have earned and sent directly to their bank accounts, without traditional fees, loans or hidden costs, according to the release. Users provide voluntary tips based on what they think is a fair price.

The Earnin community includes workers from more than 50,000 employers from every state in the country.

Topics: Mobile Apps, Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments

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COMMENTARY

Dec. 20, 2018 | by Jeff KAGAN

The world of mobile pay keeps expanding. Now Amazon.com digital wallet called Amazon Pay is starting to spread into the retail world competing with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, Venmo and countless other digital payment competitors. If done right, this could be a big win for Amazon. However, they will have to solve one big problem first.

The problem Amazon must solve is simple. They have been competing with and winning against many traditional retail stores. These stores see Amazon as the enemy. They see themselves in a competitive battle. Accepting Amazon Pay in their retail stores seems like letting the enemy in with a Trojan horse.

Mobile pay is growing with Apple Pay and many others

While that's all true, a decision has to be made by the retail world. I think some retailers will look at this as an opportunity and others will look at this as a threat. Those who see it as an opportunity may move quickly to partner with Amazon Pay. Those who see it as a threat may not.

The initial resistance may soften over time. They may change their mind and accept them at some point down the road.

With so many choices of mobile pay or digital pay options, I think most retailers will look at Amazon Pay as a separate entity from their competitor Amazon.com. Competing and partnering has been going on for a long time. Consider Apple and Google. They both compete and are partners in many ways.

If Amazon Pay is successful, retailers will be forced to opt-in

One of the big complaints I hear from Costco customers are that they only take Visa. No American Express. No MasterCard. No Discover cards. Nothing but Visa. When customers reach the upper limits of their credit card, they like to pull out another card. But if they only have one Visa, they are stuck.

It's about whether the retailer cares about the customer or not. It's about whether the retailer wants to give the customer all options or not. If they do, then they will accept all these methods.

Some retailers have chosen one mobile pay option and not another. This is often frustrating if the customer chooses something different. That is an impediment to the customer doing business with the company.

Retail companies need to make it easier, not harder for customers to do business with them. If not, most will lose market share. Companies need to make it easier, not harder for customers to do business with them if they are to continue to grow.

That's why I think Amazon Pay could have a successful future as a payment method in the retail world, even though these retailers are arch competitors with Amazon.com. Companies who understand there are different parts of Amazon, will do it. Companies who don't, may not. Not in the early stages anyway.

It's important to remember, we are still in the very early stages of this new mobile pay revolution. The best is yet to come.

Cover photo: iStock

Topics: Mobile Apps, Mobile/Digital Wallet, Mobile Payments, Retail

Companies: Amazon

Jeff KAGAN

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Dec. 20, 2018

Rambus Inc. has signed a five-year agreement with TravelMaster to provide smart digital ticketing to the South Yorkshire, England, public transit system for use on buses, trains and trams, according to a company release.

Rambus, based in Sunnyvale, California, will provide smart ticketing back office that enables secure delivery of smart tickets to these mobile devices. The tickets can be loaded onto smart cards using on-vehicle ticketing machines or onto NFC-enabled smartphones.

"For operators looking to provide a modern, frictionless transport experience that customers can rely on, smart mobile ticketing is the answer," said Russell McCullagh, vice president and general manager of Rambus Ticketing, in the release.

TravelMaster, the trading name of SCR Ticketing Co. Ltd.,  is scheduled to deploy the new smart ticketing solution during the first half of 2019, according to the release.

Topics: Contactless / NFC, Mobile Apps, NFC, Region: EMEA, Technology Providers

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Dec. 19, 2018

Royal Bank of Canada defended itself against claims that it was one of a number of major firms provided access to private data in the Messenger app by Facebook Inc., despite earlier assertions by the social media platform that private data was protected. 

The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the social media platform granted access to private user data, allowing companies like Spotify, Netflix and Royal Bank to read, write and delete private messages from Messenger users.

"RBC's use of the Facebook platform was limited to the development of a service that enabled clients to facilitate payment transactions to their Facebook friends, which was launched in December 2013," RBC said in a statement provided by spokesman Al Goodman. "As part of our security and fraud protocols, we needed to uniquely identify the recipient of funds and payments to securely process the transaction and deliver the notification."

The statement stated the bank decommissioned the service in 2015 and its limited access, which was used strictly to enable client payments, ended at the time.

A key Facebook official defended the practice in a blog post Tuesday, claiming the data sharing practice was done with integration partners to allow users to have access to Facebook accounts on other platforms, like Apple, Amazon, Blackberry and Yahoo and to allow users to have more social experiences on third-party apps like Netflix, The New York Times, Pandora or Spotify.

"To be clear, none of these partnerships or features gave gave companies access to information without people's permission, nor did they violate our 2012 settlement with the FTC," Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, director of  developer platforms and programs, wrote in the post.

Facebook executive Steve Satterfield, director of privacy and public policy, issued a statement through a spokesperson on Wednesday, stating the company did not allow its partners to ignore privacy policies. 

"We know we've got work to do to regain people's trust. Protecting people's information requires stronger teams, better technology, and clearer policies, and that's where we've been focused for most of 2018. Partnerships are one area of focus and, as we've said, we're winding down the integration partnerships that were built to help people access Facebook."

In a separate action Washington D.C. attorney general's office has filed suit against Facebook alleging the company failed to protect customer data security when it shared information with Cambridge Analytica. That company used data from Facebook in connection with analytics activity during the 2016 presidential election, and is being investigated by federal authorities.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company it is reviewing the suit and looks forward to continuing the discussion with the DC AG and others.

Topics: In-App Payments, Mobile Apps, Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments, Money Transfer / P2P, Region: Americas, Security

Companies: Royal Bank of Canada, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon

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