Take A Deep Breath PFs, Beneficial Ownership Rule Is Not So Bad

First things first: In our opinion, the Treasury's May 11 FinCEN rules are going to impact ISOs and Payment Facilitators alike, in that banks are going to make them follow these new rules.

Although the rule does not speak to ISOs or PFs underwriting merchants or submerchants, we fully believe if you are required to do KYC now -- and ISOs and PFs are required to do KYC now -- they will be required to do the increased KYC under the new rules.

India's Razorpay Onboards A Month Faster Than Rivals

Onboarding merchants in less than a week, nearly a month quicker than what the CEO says is the industry standard, Indian payment facilitator Razorpay has used that impressive stat to sign up more than 8,000 Indian merchants, including mom-and-pops and global chains such as Papa John's. Not bad for a company that wasn't even a Mastercard payment facilitator until last year.

A member of Mastercard's Start Path program since 2015, Razorpay is precisely how the card brand envisions signing 40 million merchants by 2020. The challenges are as plentiful as the opportunities.

Vintage Copacabana Ashtray NYC with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis Tape Dispensers

The Copacabana Nightclub, N.Y.C. was considered, the Greatest Nightclub of All Time. From, the late 1940's to 1973, The Copa Presented the “Entertainment Cream of the Crop.” Virtually, every star from this period, Performed on the Copacabana Stage. Every show, was an event.   It was an honor to record an album, “Live at the Copa.” The Supremes, Sam Cooke, The Temptations, Bobby Darin and Marvin Gaye, have all recorded very successful “Live at the Copa” Albums.   Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, The Supremes, Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Cooke made their N.Y.C. Debut at the Copa. The Copacabana Chorus Girls, was a major attraction. They, wore sexy mink bras and panties, with fruited turbans on top. A Copa Show Calendar, would include all the previously named. + Tony Bennett, Peggy, Ella, Lena & The Four Tops. Every week, The Copa was # 1.   In 1973, when Jules Podell, the owner of the Copa died, so did The Copacabana. Never to be replaced. My Forever Treasures, is pleased to offer this vintage Copacabana N.Y.C. Ashtray. It probably, was on a Copa Table, when one of these incredible icons performed. = The Ultimate Nightclub Treasure.   Dean Martin & Jerry […]

Brandon Marinoff – In Appreciation of Your Years of Service With The Weld County Task Force #TBT

“Brandon Marinoff – In Appreciation of Your Years of Service With The Weld County Task Force 1992-1997” #TBT

Outreach Campaigns Must Include Email Strategies

Research Shows That Customers Prefer Email

By Daniel Burstein, Marketing Sherpa

The amount of channels available to communicate with stakeholders has expanded dramatically over the past decade and options continue to grow. To help you communicate with your customers, MarketingSherpa asked 2,057 American adults about their channel preferences.

Market Research Question: How do you recommend that companies communicate with you? Please select all that apply.

Customers Overwhelmingly Prefer Email

“It's not the tired email-is-dead 2003 world anymore. Junk mail didn't kill email the way most 'experts' expected. Instead, the struggle to stay afloat in an ocean of junk made permission emailers much, much stronger.”

This was before the rise of the latest threats to email communication - Facebook, Twitter, smartphones and WhatsApp, etc. However, according to our latest research, email marketing could borrow from Mark Twain's famous quote, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

We discovered that a large majority of U.S. adults - 72 percent - prefer communication with companies to happen through email.

In many ways, customers prefer traditional versus digital tactics - with email being the main exception. Email was unique among digital channels. In fact, it was the only digital channel to outperform old media standbys - postal mail (preferred by 48 percent), television ads (preferred by 34 percent) and print media, such as magazines and newspapers, (preferred by 31 percent).

For example, only 11 percent of people preferred mobile apps and just 7 percent preferred online video ads.

Across Every Demographic, Email Was The Most Popular Channel

There were variations on channel preferences among different demographic groups. For example, 64 percent of those 55+ preferred postal mail, and 41 percent in that cohort preferred print media, while 38 percent of people ages 18-54 preferred postal mail, and 24 percent preferred print media.

However, across almost every demographic surveyed, email was the preferred way to communicate with companies. The only exception was females 65 or older - 64 percent prefer email, and 65 percent prefer postal mail.

Males aged 35-44 were the biggest fans - with 87 percent preferring email as their favorite channel.

For More Information About Digital Marketing Trends, visit: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/customer-communication-by-channel

Editor's Note: Of course this insight puts a premium on data collection and management. That's the first part of the equation–building your email lists. We have many tactics that we recommend for email harvesting and relationship management.

Microsoft And An Australian Mum; The Next PFs?

Small business is booming; sometimes it needs a payment facilitator and sometimes it becomes one. Sometimes huge business takes the plunge too.

Microsoft this past week introduced a Microsoft Office Service named Microsoft Bookings, designed to ease scheduling of appointments for business owners between themselves, employees and customers. It's a short leap to see that businesses could ask customers making appointments to pay first or lock in a date with a deposit. MindBody comes to mind, with its focus on wellness businesses and appointment bookings and payment enabling.

#Brentrance: Mastercard Buys VocaLink, Now Rules Britannia ACH

MasterCard thinks the U.K. is a jolly good place to do business. With its $920 million purchase of processor VocaLink, the card brand gets a firm owned by 13 U.K. banks that did 11 billion transactions in 2015, but that gaudy number might be the milk and sugar in the cup of tea that is a platform it coveted.

The same day Visa made an ACH-related move by partnering with PayPal so the two mega brands putting their money in bank accounts is no coincidence. ACH represents 50 percent of total electronic payment flows across the world's 50 largest countries.