Dear Subscriber,

According to the latest figures, the UK’s contactless spend in the first six months of 2016 is already more than the whole contactless spend of 2015, in both value and volume. In our lead story, we take a closer look at the data from Barclaycard and the UK Cards Association.

Elsewhere in the newsletter, momentum continues to build in the optimisation of work processes market, with Estonia-founded and London headquartered Scoro the latest to pick up funding in the space and Tom Hay, head of payments at Icon Solutions, shares his thoughts on the draft standards announced for PSD2.

We round off the newsletter with a blog from Irdeto’s David W. Jones about the opportunities, challenges and uncertainty presented by open banking APIs.

Enjoy!

In just under a year since the contactless spend limit was increased from £20 to £30, spending using the technology has increased by 173% by value and 112% by volume, according to latest figures from Barclaycard.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published the long-awaited draft of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) covering Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) and secure communication. Tom Hay, head of payments at Icon Solutions shares his thoughts on whether they will be effective.

Estonia-founded Scoro is the latest startup to raise money in the workflow management tool space, picking up $1.9m in new funding this week.

There are increasing calls for the use of open banking APIs from industry groups and even the UK Treasury. It is clear that this market shift is inevitable, but while this openness will facilitate innovation and drive competition, there is uncertainty.