Black Friday has made the leap from a solely United States event. The United Kingdom had local Black Friday sales on November 28, which resulted in police getting called to seven Tesco shops in the Greater Manchester area. What’s most interesting, however, is that U.S. Black Friday sales are estimated to have declined 11% year-over-year. Perhaps Black Friday isn’t as big a shopping day as it used to be.
On to the payables news though. This week we’ve got another piece on low-cost, long-haul flights along with SAP deciding to offer Ariba’s business network discovery package free to small and mid-sized enterprises. Check out the roundup below for some of the most interesting payables news from this past week.
Making Laker’s Dream Come True
The Economist takes a long look at how to make low-cost, long-haul flights a reality. Sir Freddie Laker was an early proponent of low-cost, long-haul (more than 6 hours) travel, but his ventures failed constantly. This time, several carriers, such as Norwegian and Ryanair, appear to have decided on making a go of offering such services. Whether the low-cost model of flying can actually work in long-haul situations, such as Boston to London or London to Jakarta remains to be seen. Read the full article at http://www.economist.com/news/business/21635001-low-cost-airlines-have-revolutionised-short-haul-flying-now-after-several-failed-attempts.
SAP Changing Its Large Enterprise Stripes
CDN spoke with Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP, about the software giant’s newfound focus on small and mid-sized enterprises. SMEs account for more than 80% of SAP’s users, including subsidiary Ariba’s business network; to foster growth in that segment, SAP has decided to offer an Ariba Network discovery package for free to small and mid-sized enterprises. This appears a game-changer for SAP, which some may perceive as solely a large-enterprise, Fortune-500 sort of provider. Read the full article at http://www.computerdealernews.com/news/sap-changing-its-large-enterprise-stripes/38114.
3Delta Systems Reaches $100 Billion Processing Milestone
3Delta Systems announced via press release that they’ve reached the $100 billion mark of payments processed through their system. The payments provider has operated since 1999, and currently has more than 11,000 merchants and 19,000 active users of its solution. Read the release at http://www.3dsi.com/about-3dsi/press-room/press-releases/3delta-systems-reaches-100-billion-processing-milestone.
Bitcoin: New Plumbing for Financial Services
CoinDesk ran an intriguing opinion piece from Jonathan Levin that explains the financial system in general and bitcoin in particular using a plumbing analogy. The short version is that the financial system is a series of pipes that money moves through, and bitcoin has the potential to re-plumb the current infrastructure in a decentralized way. Levin’s article is highly technical, but fascinating for payments professionals. Read the full article at http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-new-plumbing-financial-services/.
San Francisco DA Pushes for Chip Payment Cards in Tech’s Backyard
San Francisco, Calif., District Attorney George Gascon is pushing for brick-and-mortar stores in Silicon Valley’s backyard to accept chip-and-pin payment cards, according to a PCWorld report. Gascon wants the change because traditional magnetic-stripe cards risk fraud from skimming and other techniques; the increased security of chip-and-pin cards is well known. Gascon kicked off a campaign to grow awareness of chip-and-pin cards at a San Francisco bookstore last week. Read the full report at http://www.pcworld.com/article/2852432/san-francisco-da-pushes-for-chip-payment-cards-in-techs-backyard.html.
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