- The U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Financial Technology held a hearing Thursday morning titled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments.” Witnesses included representatives from PayPal, the U.S. Faster Payments Council, the Brookings Institute, Consumer Reports, and a New York City non-profit dedicated to financial inclusion. The House Financial Services Committee is considering a bill, H.R. 2650, that would bar retailers from not accepting cash.
- VoPay International Inc., whose technology links businesses to payers’ bank accounts directly for payments, announced an agreement with billing-services company Telpay Inc. to enable tools and application programming interfaces for billers in Canada.
- Sound Payments, a provider of payments technology for petroleum and other industries, said it has opened an office in St. Petersburg, Fla., to support sales of its EMV technology for gas stations.
- Ottawa, Ontario-based e-commerce services and payments provider Shopify Inc. plans to hire 1,000 workers in Vancouver, the Financial Post reported. The Vancouver operation will be focused on software development, and research and development.
- Meta Financial Group Inc., owner of MetaBank, a regional bank and major prepaid card issuer, reported $21.5 million in non-interest income from payment card and deposit fees in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 3% from $20.8 million a year earlier.
- Processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. unveiled its JHA BankAnywhere platform, a cloud-based digital-banking system available to any bank regardless of its core-processing system.
- Payments-services provider i2c Inc. said it and Najm, a financial-services provider based in the Middle East, are making Apple Pay available to Najm prepaid cardholders in the region.
- American Express Co. elected Karen Parkhill, chief financial officer at medical-device maker Medtronic plc, to its board of directors. Before joining Medtronic in 2016, Parkhill was vice chairman and CFO at banking firm Comerica Inc. and before that was CFO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s commercial banking business.
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