Your Tech Story

online payment

Global Payments

Global Payments – Boosting The Digital Commerce Ecosystem Since 2000.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

In 1996, Global Payments was originally established as a subsidiary of the National Data Corporation. It was spun off very shortly and it became an independent company that is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Global Payments is a leading American company in the payment processing industry that offers its services to a wide range of customers from financial institutions to small and medium businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies are also customers of Global Payments including Nixon, Sodexo, Kiko, etc. The company has virtually spread across more than 100 countries and has physical operation support in 38 countries. In June 2021, It was featured as one of the Fortune 500 companies.

About Global Payments

Global Payments have become very famous within two decades especially because they support businesses of every size. The company successfully carries out billions of transactions every year very safely and smoothly. There are 24,000 employees working for the company who are delivering expert advice to the customers and keeping them ahead of the competition. The team of Global Payments is very diverse as they belong to 80 different nationalities and also speak 16 native languages.

Global Payments offers services to a variety of industries including retail, entertainment, luxury, grocery, hospitality, etc. Using the advanced technology of Global Payments, payments can be accepted in various modes. Online payment allows transactions from anywhere in the world. There are other options like unified payments, point of sale, integrated software, etc. The payment technology is so versatile that it helps both the merchants and the consumers. Amidst the immense success of the company, Global Payments also fall victim to a data breach incident ten years ago. Millions of debit and credit number numbers were affected and it cost the company $100 million.

Global Payments
Image source: businesswire.com

History of the Company

Global Payments started operating as an independent company in 2001 and before that, it was operating under National Data Corporation. The company made several acquisitions and partnerships in the last two decades starting with United Card Service which is the leading credit card processing company in Russia. In 2009, Company paid $75 million to acquire this company for the card services. After two years, the United Card Service that was operating under Global Payments bought Alfa Bank’s credit card processing unit. In 2012, Company acquired Accelerated Payment Technologies for $413 million and after two years acquired an Australian company called Ezidebit for $305 million.

In the upcoming years, the series of acquisitions continued as it purchased many famous companies. For example, in January 2015, Global Payments acquired PayPros, a California-based payment company for $420 million. In the same year, it also acquired an Irish payment company called Realex Payments. In 2016, Company made one of the biggest acquisitions in its history as it bought Heartland Payment Systems for $4.3 billion. During this time, both companies were dominant in the payment processing industry. Some of the other companies that were acquired by the company are AdvancedMD, Sentral Education, and divisions of Active Networks. Three years ago, the company also announced a merger with TSYS for $21.5 billion but it also triggered a federal investigation. But, the merger took place after some time and the company has also announced a partnership with Google Cloud.

Jeffrey S. Sloan – CEO of Global Payments

Jeffrey S. Sloan is a very skilled leader with deep industry knowledge. It has been more than twenty-five years that he has strong expertise in the financial sector. Jeff became a part of Global Payments in 2010 when he joined the company as its President and in 2013 he became the CEO of the same. He has worked in many other famous companies in executive positions such as head of financial technology group for Goldman, Sachs & Co. Jeff was also featured in the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of Atlanta’s Most Admired CEOs.

RBI

As A Result Of The RBI New Payments Rule, Tech Giants Brace For The Fallout In India.

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

As the central bank of the world’s second-largest internet market imposed a new directive. for how recurring payments are processed in this country, Apple, Sony, Google, Zoom, PayPal, and dozens of other technology companies, as well as dozens of banks, have warned customers and partners in India to expect an increase in rejected transactions.
The RBI has issued a directive that requires banks, financial institutions, and payment gateways to obtain additional approval from users for auto-renewable transactions worth more than 5,000 Indian rupees ($67) by providing notices, mandates, and Additional Authentication Factors (AF). The directive affects all those transactions for debit and credit cards.
The directive, which was first proposed in 2019, was supposed to go into effect in April of this year, but it was postponed until September 30 after banks and other stakeholders said they weren’t ready to comply.
Before deducting amounts for recurring payments, banks must now obtain account holder approval. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced new self-debit rules on Friday as the next step in securing digital credit or debit card transactions. Recurring automatic payments for various top-ups and bills must now be protected with additional authentication factors under the new rules (AFA).
All banks, including RRBs, NBFCs, and payment gateways, have been ordered by the central bank to stop processing recurring domestic and cross-border transactions using cards, prepaid payment instruments (PPI), or Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI) without AFA.
Before deducting funds for certain purposes, banks must now get account holders’ permission. The new guidelines require banks to send customers a one-time password for recurring payments over $5,000.
Because banks were not yet ready to implement AFA, the deadline had to be pushed back several times. Recurring payments to utility service providers, as well as recharging of telephone, DTH, and OTT services, are all covered by the new car rule. The RBI directive on implementing AFA will cover all of these payments because they are now made through recurring deductions from registered bank accounts, UPI IDs, or digital wallets.
The new rules have been communicated to most banks’ customers. If you missed the announcement, here are five things to know about the RBI’s new automatic billing rules.

RBI
Image source: www.trustnodes.com

Early Accountholder Alert

Before deducting the amount from the registered account for recurring payments, banks must notify account holders 24 hours in advance. The reason for this is to ensure that customers are fully informed about all transactions involving their accounts. The bank will not be able to forward the money to the service provider unless the customer has acknowledged and completed the recurring payment.

One-Time Registration

If customers want to complete future transactions without additional authentication factors, they must first complete the registration process. Users will be able to make future transactions without having to repeat AFA, despite the fact that it appears to be an extra step. They can also specify a transaction’s validity period in the future.

OTPs For Auto-Debit

In accordance with the new direct debit rules, the bank must send a one-time password (OTP) to the account holder for recurring payments exceeding $5,000.

Choice To Opt-Out

Customers are not obligated to use AFA for recurring payments and can opt out at any time. The pre-debit notification that the bank will send to the customer to confirm automatic billing will also include a link that the customer can use to disable AFA. However, this will negate the additional security it provides.
Auto-Debits out of AFA
The new automatic debit rules will not affect permanent instructions to use an existing bank account for mutual funds, SIPs, or Equivalent Monthly Installment (EMI) for loans.

Total System Services

Total System Services – A Leading Provider of Payment Processing Solutions Since 1983.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By

Born in 1983, Total System Services (TSYS) primarily provides payment processing services to financial companies and retailers across the globe. TSYS is the provider of secure and innovative payment solutions to clients spread over 80 different countries. The company has around 200 active clients and the company strives to unleash every related payment possibility for them and their business. TSYS is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, and operates with approximately 12,800 employees. The parent company of TSYS is Global Payments which is a relatively young company. TSYS is running under the leadership of M. Troy Woods since 2014.

The Founding Story of Total System Services

The story of every successful company begins with finding a solution to a problem faced in daily life. If a person is vigilant enough to understand the pain points of commoners, one will get multiple business ideas to eradicate these problems. Something similar happened almost 133 years ago that led to the foundation of TSYS. One of the biggest foundational strengths of TSYS is that it always puts the needs of people first and finds various ways to solve their problems.

Total System Services
Image source: www.tsys.com

The history of TSYS traces back to the events of 1888 when a manager of a textile mill saw that his employees didn’t have a safe place to save their money. This got him thinking about how he could solve the problem for one of his employees and ended up building her a bank which became a striking trailblazer. This was a very innovative solution and in 1959 this bank operated as a part of Columbus Bank and Trust. In 1974, it started processing one of Georgia’s first credit cards for other banks. The company eventually emerged as Total System Services Inc in 1983 and became a public company.

Partnerships and Acquisitions

In 1983, after TSYS became a publicly-traded company it started making many acquisitions and expanding its presence. The company after filing its first IPO still operated under Columbus Bank and Trust (now known as Synovus) and was finally spun off in 2007. In the meantime, TSYS acquired a company called Clarity Payment Solutions in 2004 for $53 million. TSYS also signed a partnership with Visa Inc which was back in 1995 to merge its merchant processing services with those of Visa. In 2004, TSYS also started processing credit cards issued by JPMC, another well-known American investment bank.

In the last ten years, the company made a handful of acquisitions starting from acquiring a 51 percent stake in the merchant acquisition business of First National Bank of Omaha. After the acquisition, the business was renamed TSYS Merchant Solutions and the company acquired the rest 49 percent in 2011. The company acquired another business called TermNet in 2011. In 2012, the company entered into a joint partnership with Central Payment Co. LLC. In the same year, the company also acquired ProPay, a Utah-based company. TSYS made a big acquisition in July 2013 as it acquired Netspend for $1.4 billion. Some of the other companies that TSYS acquired in recent years are TransFit, Cayan, and iMobile3. In 2019, TSYS came under the acquisition of Global Payments, an American company providing financial technology services.

About Global Payments

Born in 2000, Global Payments is a leading financial service provider based in Atlanta. Jefferey. Sloan is the CEO of the company and M. Troy Woods (CEO of TSYS) is the Chairman of the Boards. The stock of Global Payments is a component of the S & P 500 stock market index as is publicly traded in the NYSE as GPN. Global Payments is also a Fortune 1000 company and its biggest market is in North America followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. Global Payments have made plenty of acquisitions since 2000 but the merger with TSYS is the biggest acquisition in its history till now. In May 2019, Global Payments announced the merger with TSYS for $21.5 billion.

M. Troy Woods – CEO of Total System Services

M. Troy Woods is the CEO and President of TSYS who has significantly contributed to the company’s diversification strategies. Woods completed his undergraduate degree from Columbus State University and he also went to several banking schools including The Wharton School. Woods was a part of the Columbus Bank and Trust from 1970 to 1977 and again rejoined TSYS in 1987. Under the leadership of Woods, TSYS has become more of a people-centric company with a belief that payment should revolve around people and not the other way around.

Apple Card

The US Citizens Can Now Finally Use the Apple Card

Leave a Comment / News, Product, Tech News / By

Apple finally launched its most anticipated Apple card on Tuesday. For now, it will only be available for the users in the U.S. The users can apply for the card directly from their Apple Wallet app on their iPhone. They do not have to wait for the physical card to arrive as they can use it virtually through the Apple Pay as soon they request for the card.

The new card is the digital-first card that the iPhone users will get, and it will even make the credits private for the users. According to Apple, no system will keep the record of from where and when a user has shopped and what amount did he pay, like, in the cash system, it will keep the credits anonymous. So the users don’t have to worry about their data being sold by the company. But the users can see their spendings and balance in the card through the Apple Card app. They can also keep the record of the cash backs they got and see where they spent their money in Apple Maps.

Apple has partnered with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard to design and process the card. There is no annual fee, cash advances fees, over the limit fees or late fees, that the user needs to pay to use the card. And moreover, according to the claims made by the company, it has got even lesser interest on the purchases. In fact, the company will be providing incentives and cash rewards to users for using the new card. The card is acceptable at every merchant accepting Mastercard.

Apple Card
Image Source: interestingengineering.com

The new card also renders some interesting features, like it changes colour for different types of spendings. For example, if a user is using the card for a restaurant bill, the card will turn orange. And if the spending is on entertainment, the card colour will be a mix of orange and pink. Apple has already started 3% cashback on purchase through the virtual card at selected merchants, including Uber and Uber Eats. With the physical card, the cashback will be 1%.

The new app to use the card is available for the users, who own an Apple 6 or a newer model running iOS 12.4. To use the app, you need to go to the Apple Wallet and tap on the (+) icon on the upper right corner on the screen. Then, a Continue button will appear along with a small description of the Apple Card. Upon tapping on the Continue button, a list of Card Type will appear, where you need to select Apple Card. Then you must verify and confirm your details by filling in the information and accept the Apple Card terms and conditions on the next screen.

After that, Apple will send you a description of the credit limit and interest rates based on your information, where you need to tap on Accept Apple Card. This way, the card will be ready for use.

UPI

Mandar Agashe : The Man Who Brought a Revolution in the Indian Digital Payment System

Leave a Comment / Founder, India, Product, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Receiving rewards for paying your bills is like the smartest scheme ever to digitalize the payment system of our nation. Most of us make payments through UPI apps like Tez to earn digital scratch cards and cash backs. The growth of UPI has been unbelievable from only 92,000 transactions in August 2016 to 105 million transactions in November 2017. Today, almost everyone with a smartphone uses these UPI apps for the transaction. And, the biggest advantage of UPI is you don’t have to walk to your bank to deposit money into someone’s bank account. From transferring money to bank accounts to paying for movie tickets, UPI has become the most convenient and the most successful initiative in terms of online banking.

But, who is the person behind this massive success that turned the entire scenario of digital payment in no time?

Mandar Agashe, the founder of Sarvatra Technologies, a company that provides financial and payment solutions to the Indian banking sector, came up with the idea of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and launched it in 2016.

Early Life of Mandar Agashe

Mandar Agashe
Image Source: Facebook

In 24th May 1969, Agashe was born into an influential family of Mumbai to an Indian businessman, cricketer and philanthropist, Dnyaneshwar Agashe, and Rekha Gogte. Agashe had two other siblings, Ashutosh Agashe and Sheetal Agashe.

When Agashe was pursuing his B.E. degree in Computers, he created Musicurry.com, an online radio website. After completing his college, Agashe joined his family business in 1994 and started working in the firms. By 2000, he established EBZ Online in association with Oracle, followed by establishing Brihans Natural Products Ltd., and finally, Sarvatra Technologies in 2000.

Sarvatra Technologies

Agashe established his startup in Pune. The startup was basically to provide payment solutions and promote online banking through UPI and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service). The main goal of the company was to get the rural and semi-urban population connected to banking as well as the system of digital payment and get every citizen of India accustomed to EFT (Electronic funds transfer).

Since Mandar Agashe belonged to a family full of successful business tycoons, he had a clear idea of how the corporate sectors function. He wanted to come up with a solution that can be affordable to every single person out there and can easily carry out online transactions with minimal knowledge.

Oracle was the first company to invest in the strategies of Agashe, and eventually, investors like Vallabh Bhanshali and ICICI Bank participated in the following funding rounds. By 2018, the company brought 450 co-operative banks on National Financial Switch.

Agashe realized that both, the banks and the customers, faced a lot of issues during online transactions because of the poor connectivity. So, he provided the banks with SaaS-based technologies to enhance better performance, and also, reducing the operating cost at the same time.

The success of UPI and other payment solutions

After UPI was launched in 11th April 2016, the transaction volume increased unexpectedly. Transactions through the leading UPI apps like Google Tez, PhonePe and BHIM increased exponentially. By 5th December 2017, two months since the launch of Tez, the transaction volume hit 140 million, and the amount processed through PhonePe summed up to 100 crores per day.

Another advantage of Tez which accounts for 70% of the total UPI transaction is that the money one pays through it directly gets credited in one’s bank account instead of getting dropped into the wallets. By 2017, the apps that use UPI reached 20 million downloads from Play Store.

In the financial year 2017-2018, Mandar Agashe announced that they had a gross transaction value of 27,000, and by the next financial year, they will be going to make it 40,000 crores.

Agashe’s Musical Career

Apart from being an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and a successful businessman, Agashe is also a renowned singer. Releasing Musicurry.com was his first step towards the musical world, which led to launching his very own music album. His first role in the world of music was as a co-director with Pandit Hridayanath. He sang his first playback song with Asha Bhosle, and in 1998, his album ‘Nazar Nazar’ was recorded and released in Hindi and English. In 2005, another album, Jaan Le was released followed by 82 in 2016.

Apple Pay is the Next Payment Method Ride New York’s Subways

News, Tech News / By

Metro cards are over twenty years old, and it seems the time has come to say goodbye to them. From the time metro trains have been in existence, people have been using those cards and tokens to pay for their subway rides. But now it won’t be the only method for payment, as Apple has announced that people will be able to transit through metro by paying using Apple Pay instead of the MetroCard.

apple pay for nyc subway
Image Source: techhnews.com

Yes! To initiate the usage of Apple Pay for paying for the subway rides, Apple has announced that the very payment method is coming to Organizations Transportation Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The new terminals have already been installed at a different New York City subway stations, including Union Square and Grand Central, such that for now, the riders will be able to pay for their rides on the subway’s 4, 5, 6 line through the Apple Pay app.

Starting from Friday this week, the passage where usually the metro card and the tokens are scanned, people will see a digital rectangular panel enclosed in blue light attached to the bottom part of the turnstile. Over the panel, instead of the metro card, the riders can scan their iPhone and even the Apple watch.

There are some compatibility criteria that one would need to fulfil in order to use the Apple Pay for the transit. First of all the OS for the iPhone must be updated at least up to iOS 12.3, and the watchOS must be 5.2.1 version. Apple Pay will reflect the Express Transit feature which will be available for iPhone 6s and SE or later. Same for the Apple watch, only the Apple Watch Series 1, 2 and 3, using NFC will be able to offer the feature. The user needs to authenticate their debit or credit card with the Express Transit features, such that to make payment through the Apple Pay app.

The method to use iPhone and Apple watch is quite simple and similar to the usage of MetroCards. The rider needs to place their iPhone or the Apple watch against the digital screen on the turnstile, and when the light turns green, a message of ‘Go’ is flashed on it, and the metal arm will be unlocked for the rider to pass through.

The same feature has also been announced by the other tech giant Google on its payment app Google Pay, that too will start operating from 31 May in select subway stations for the specific subway lines. In fact, for the Google Pay, the riders just need to download the app and attach the payment methods to it, and they can easily pay through their phones without opening the app or even unlocking their phones.