The information you need to start your day from PaymentsSource and around the Web Amazons rewards infiltrate Whole Foods Amazon is migrating Whole Foods incentive programs to Amazon Prime meaning the grocery chain will be ending its own programs May 2 The grocery chain has already been pushing consumers toward Amazon Primes incentive marketing for several months Business Insider reports Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos this week told investors the technical work to recognize Prime members at the point of sale is underway making it possible to expand Prime benefits to Whole Foods shoppers Amazons move places Prime more firmly in traditional brick and mortar creating an e-commerce in-store combo for Prime members that makes it even harder for traditional grocers to compete as Amazon can now combine online shopping brick and mortar coupons and cash back and delivery through the same account Bloomberg News Visa and Mastercards new button Visa and Mastercard are planning a combined online payment button that could succeed Visa Checkout and Masterpass according to MarketWatch which cited an announcement at an industry event in Las Vegas Wednesday evening In interviews executives from the two card brands told the Wall Street Journal theres too much clutter among online payment options given the OEM Pays PayPal and other options which all serve the same general purpose of expediting checkout by not requiring consumers to rekey information for each purpose Mastercard and Visa didnt position their strategy as a competitive play against mobile apps but likened it to a discontinuation of an older payment terminal in favor of something faster Masterpass dates to 2012 and Visa Checkout launched in 2014 American Express separately showed interest in a move to combine payment buttons according to Morningstar Google jet set Commercial airlines are increasingly supporting mobile payments and the trend is extending to private carriers Skyjet is adding Google Pay making the app available for its mostly private aviation flights The private carrier also supports Apple Pay enabling travelers to book and pay for private jet travel via mobile apps Skyjets app also has a live chat feature and account management Google Pay will be available for the carriers premium and one-off passengers Shop in a snap Fresh off of adding more support for restaurant ordering and payment technology Snapchat is attempting to keep users inside its app by adding a shopping feature USA Online News reports the Shop Now button will allow issuers to install outside apps watch videos and shop for products without leaving Snapchat The button is on an expanded version of Snapchats lens product called the Shoppable AR lens Emerging supply chains CDC Group and Standard Chartered Bank will collaborate on a supply chain payment system for developing markets in Africa and South Asia The program will start in Nigeria Uganda Ghana and Kenya where payments for supplies often lag for up to three months due to a gap in automation and B2B payments structure CDC and Standard Chartered will provide financing with shared risk that will allow suppliers and buyers to execute payments quickly TransferWise gets faster TransferWise has drawn nearly 300 million from tech investors to enter new markets but its also expanding in its home market in the UK Its the first nonbank to become a member of the UKs Faster Payments scheme opening a settlement account with the Bank of England reports Finextra The bank extended direct access to nonbanks last year as part of an effort to encourage more financial innovation From the Web Chevy will soon let you pay for gas from inside your car Yahoo Finance Wed Apr 18 2018 - Refueling your Chevy car or truck is about to get a little easier with the launch of Chevys new in-dash payment system The service which is being beta tested in Detroit Seattle and Houston is part of General Motors Marketplace commerce platform and will allow drivers to pay for their gas from inside their vehicles via their infotainment systems Explainer Ant Financials 150 billion valuation and the big recent bump-up Reuters Wed Apr 18 2018 - Ant Financials rapid climb to become the worlds biggest super unicorn valued by some investors at around 150 billion showcases investor enthusiasm for the biggest Chinese tech companies and also how quickly valuations can shift Just two months ago bankers and investors were tentatively talking of a figure closer to 100 billion Didi Chuxing to accept cashless payments in Hong Kong cabs for first time South China Morning Post Thu April 19 2018 - Hong Kongs taxi drivers have frequently faced criticism for their refusal to move with the times and fully embrace electronic payments as an alternative to cash That has not stopped some of the biggest players in the mobile payments game trying to capture market share in the hope that one day more customers will be reaching for their smartphones instead of their wallets to settle their cab fares More from PaymentsSource How LevelUp navigated the cutthroat world of mobile payments LevelUp had a lot of failed experiments along the way but it still won over major partners and is seeing new results in the restaurant industry American Express push to bolster lending is starting to pay off American Express Co long known to issue cards that had to be paid off in full every month now wants its customers to take their time paying it back How Indias Paytm plans to reap success in Canadas mature market Before Paytm became one of Indias most popular mobile wallets it was a little-known bill payment app that launched in 2011 and spread by word of mouth Now Paytm is revisiting that history in Canada though its challenges in North America are very different than what it faced in India Stripe debuts tool for e-commerce security teams E-commerce payments technology provider Stripe is launching a fraud prevention tool for security professionals at large organizations