Many in the community have been hoping that the secret “Twitter Coins” project would involve cryptocurrency in some way after the project was first leaked in early December by tech bloggers Jane Manchun Wong and Nima Owji.
Global payments company MoneyGram has announced a new 
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Payments, Transfers, Rewards
VoPay Launches VoPay360 – Embedded Financial Technology
VoPay | Release | Feb 1, 2023
Image: VoPay website
Leading provider of embedded financial technology solutions, VoPay, today announced the launch of VoPay 360.
- VoPay 360 bridges the gap between accounting software and the payment platform in one centralized platform.
- Built on VoPay's industry-leading API, VoPay 360 will become the "operating system" for all transaction data going in and out of a business, revolutionizing how companies handle their financial transactions.
- Problem: As businesses often use multiple systems to manage their Accounts Payments and Accounts Receivable processes, they must often allocate additional resources to their operations, relying heavily on manual labour, resulting in an increased risk of error. In fact, the average time to process a single manual paper-based transaction is 8 minutes, with costs $3 more than an electronic transaction.
- Business customers are increasingly seeking integrated solutions to solve complex money movement problems, as manual and paper-intensive methods cannot keep up with modern enterprises' needs.
See: Payment Trends: Opportunities and Risks Shaping 2023
- Key benefits:
- Integration: Allows VoPay customers to connect VoPay to their accounting system
- Centralization: Brings in open invoices and bills from the accounting system to VoPay
- Efficiency: Eliminates the manual processes of financial data entry, freeing up staff members so they can focus on more strategic tasks.
- Visibility: Real-time payment tracking enables businesses to immediately identify and resolve issues that may cause a delay in cash flow.
- Process Automation: Automate one of the most time-consuming and error-prone processes for business: the update of ERP systems with financial transaction data. Turn an open receivable or payable item into a closed or paid item automatically.
Read: X-Border Payments: European Central Bank Report says CBDCs Could Be ‘Holy Grail’
Hamed Arbabi, Founder and CEO at VoPay:
“The introduction of VoPay 360 was a result of direct feedback from our customers who were experiencing inefficiencies in their current AR/AP processes and needed a more innovative approach. In this day and age, managing collections and reconciliation should be easy, but that’s not the reality. We want to help businesses eradicate the friction associated with multiple disconnected systems by maximizing digitization and bringing all the necessary tools into a single platform. I expect our customers to see immediate benefits from this 360 solution.”
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Payment Trends: Opportunities and Risks Shaping 2023
Capgemini | Nilesh Vaidya | Jan 30, 2023
Image: Capgemini
Top Trends in Payments 2023 contains Capgemini’s perspectives on the top 10 trends for the months ahead
We anticipate widespread opportunity for innovation and growth. Trends include payment providers’ customer-centricity strategies such as buy-now/pay-later and embedded finance, data-safeguarding tokenization, and sustainability protocols focused on eco-friendly payment modes. Also on the radar screen are changing industry dynamics brought on by composable architecture and payment hub modernization, among other actions.
See: Payments Canada Report: Rebound & Grow – Payment Methods and Trends in 2021
Included Trends
- BNPL momentum continues despite post-pandemic macroeconomics
- Embedded finance is leveraging customer data to find new use cases
- Global adoption of ISO 20022 opens doors to data modernization
- Central banks gearing up to pilot and implement CBDCs
- Composable architecture leads to competitive efficiencies
- Real time cross border payments will improve speed and volume of regional trade
- End-to-end ecosystems are simplifying payment moderatization
- Paytech innovation and partnerships seeking to revamp SMB payments
- Tokenization for scalable and secure payment infrastructure
- Eco-friendly cards, digital payments, and cloud-based payment hubs will boost sustainability
Image: Capgemini
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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3 Easy Tricks to Pay Off Your Student Loan Faster
Guest Post | Jan 21, 2023
It’s a rare student who doesn’t want to pay off their student loan faster. And in today’s post, we’re going to share three tricks that will help you do so without a huge surplus of cash.
#1 Pay More than the Minimum Due
An average student’s life is more than hectic. Urgent assignments, extra-curriculars, seminars, workshops, and lectures don’t leave young learners enough time to earn some extra money. But college students are an amazingly resilient, resourceful, and adaptable category that can make it in combining studies and work. If you avail yourself of a reliable essay maker for students, chances are you’ll also find some time for a part-time job, which will help you pay more than your minimum due.
Your student loan officer will tell you how much you owe each month. And lots of people just pay exactly what they are told. But did you know that paying even a little bit more than your minimum due can seriously reduce the time that it takes for you to pay off your student loans? This is because the extra money can get applied directly to the principal balance of your debt instead of your interest. So, if you start paying just 10 dollars more than your minimum monthly payment, chances are you will be able to actually shave up to an entire year off of your repayment period.
Unfortunately, there’s a twist to this trick. Sometimes, loan officers can get a bit sneaky and apply that extra money you gave them to future payments instead of to the chunk of debt that you’re trying to pay off. You do need to consult with your student loan servicer directly and prescriptively tell them that you want the extra money applied to the principal balance of your debt.
#2 Bi-Weekly Payment
A slightly trickier but highly effective strategy would be making bi-weekly payments.
If you get paid on a bi-weekly schedule, you know that there might be a couple months out of the year you get those sweet-sweet three paychecks in a month. It’s because there are 52 weeks in a year, which actually ends up shaking out to 26 bi-weekly pay periods. You could apply the same principle to your student loan debt and actually squeeze out an extra monthly payment without having to pay more. Here is how it works.
A fictional Sarah owes $400 a month in her student loan payments. Typically, she pays that $400 on the last day of every month. But instead, Sarah decides to split that in two and pays $200 on the 15th and another $200 on the last day of the month. Because she’s paying bi-weekly, Sarah actually ends up paying an extra $400. So, she’s making 13 payments instead of 12 monthly payments. Just be sure that you’re paying both parts of your bi-weekly payment before your monthly bill is due. Otherwise, you can end up being delinquent on your student loan. There is on flaw, though. Not all services allow borrowers to do bi-weekly payments. So, call your servicer directly and clarify this issue.
#3 Pay Now or During Your Grace Period
For those who are still in college or recently graduated, start making payments now or during your grace period. There is no rule that says you have to wait until your loan servicer sends you the first bill in order to start making payments. Chipping away at your student loan debt early before you’re required to start making payments is a great way to reduce both the amount you owe and overall interest you’re going to pay.
See: Finliti Delivers Personalized Financial Insights Using the Power of Psychometrics
Paying even just a little bit every month is really going to help yourself out post-graduation. And just because you start making payments early doesn’t mean you have to keep going. You can always switch back until you’re required to pay your bills after the deferment of your loan while in school or during your grace period.
These are just three simple tricks, which, nonetheless, can help alleviate your financial burden and get out of debt sooner.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Twitter Soon Launching In-app ‘Coins’ to Help Creators Make Money – No Crypto Mentioned (yet)
Cointelegraph | Felix Ng | Jan 11, 2023
Many in the community have been hoping that the secret “Twitter Coins” project would involve cryptocurrency in some way after the project was first leaked in early December by tech bloggers Jane Manchun Wong and Nima Owji.
- However, newly leaked images of the project’s development shared by Wong and Owji on Jan. 10 are devoid of any mention of crypto or blockchain technology.
- Even purchasing Twitter Coins won’t involve crypto payments at this stage. According to Wong, purchasing Twitter’s digital currency will be enabled through fiat using Stripe.
See: Elon’s Vision for a Twitter Payment System (and then Super App)
- One of the images is a screenshot of the purported purchasing splash page for Twitter Coins, which explains that the in-app currency will allow users to “support creators who Tweet great content.”
- This appears to be in reference to the platform’s “Twitter Awards,” which was also leaked by Manchun Wong a week earlier, on Jan. 5.
- According to a tweet by Wong, awards such as “Mind Blown,” “Bravo” and “Super Like” can be sent to content creators on the platform — at a cost denominated in Twitter Coins.
“Coins allow you to support creators who Tweet great content. Unused coins are kept in your balance.” pic.twitter.com/ksNu75mI2r
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) January 10, 2023
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Why Are Crypto Payments Safer When You Play at an Online Casino?
Guest Post | Jan 10, 2023
Image: Pexels/David McBee
The popularity and usage of cryptocurrencies have increased significantly in the past few years. In today’s time, many merchants accept crypto payments—you can buy goods with crypto, trade them, pay for services, and much more.
In fact, since crypto is expected to recover in 2023, cryptocurrencies might be the best option for anyone looking to avoid using credit cards. In addition to being a safer option, cryptocurrencies have several advantages over credit card transfers, especially if you are looking to play at an online casino.
Crypto Payments vs. Credit Card Transfers
Security is one of the main concerns for anyone looking to play at an online casino. While most online casinos are reputable, licensed, and trustworthy, not many people are willing to leave their personal data and credit card information with a gambling establishment.
Because of that, Ethereum gambling has flourished in recent years, mainly because of Ethereum’s price, safety, and transaction speed.
Of course, if you need a tad more convincing, here’s what makes cryptocurrency payments safer than credit or debit cards.
Crypto Payments are Decentralized
Cryptocurrencies use a decentralized system known as the blockchain to record and process transactions. The transactions that occur on the blockchain do not require centralized financial institutions to process the transaction, making every cryptocurrency transaction peer-to-peer.
On the other hand, your everyday credit card transactions include four participants:
- the merchant
- the acquirer (financial institution that allows payments to the merchant)
- the issuer (the cardholder’s bank)
- the buyer
Since cryptocurrency transfers do not use third-party to verify the transaction, your data, such as your credit card number, CCV, and even your personal information, is not stored in data centers or centralized hubs, which are often susceptible to hacking, making crypto payments a safer option.
Blockchain Is Virtually Unhackable
Apart from eliminating the need for a third party and reducing data exposure, cryptocurrency transactions are also considered much safer because of how the blockchain is structured.
Namely, blockchain is a distributed ledger of information. All the information available on the blockchain is stored in blocks of data, which are interconnected, and spread across numerous nodes.
To prevent tampering with the data, each block is digitally signed with a hash, which is based on the contents of the record and all the other blocks on the blockchain and also serves to verify the legitimacy of every node.
For someone to change the information stored on a specific block, they would need to hack the majority of block nodes. While this is possible with the so-called 51% attack, such an attack is extremely difficult to achieve, and hackers have little incentive to even try it.
In addition, as more nodes appear on the blockchain, attacks like the 51% attack become even more difficult to carry out, which is why blockchain is considered virtually unhackable.
Simply put, by using cryptocurrency to play in an online casino, or anywhere else, for that matter, you eliminate the risk of having your credit card information stored in a data center and potentially stolen.
At the same time, since no personal information is used in crypto transactions, you also avoid risking identity theft, making crypto payments a far safer option for playing in online casinos.
Crypto Is Also Better for Playing in Online Casinos
Image: Pexels/Andrea Piacquadio
In addition to being a safer option, crypto is much more convenient than fiat for gambling online—it is faster, offers more privacy, and lower fees.
Credit Card Deposits Have Higher Fees
By making a deposit using a credit card, you may be susceptible to incurring late fees, interest charges, and even foreign transaction fees.
While online casinos usually do not charge a deposit or a withdrawal fee, most credit card issuers treat gambling-related transactions as a form of cash advance or cash equivalent and charge a cash advance fee, which is anywhere between 3% and 5% per transaction.
On the other hand, crypto casinos that do charge a fee usually charge a flat fee to cover the transaction costs, which is often negligible.
Crypto Transactions Take Less Time
As we mentioned earlier, your everyday credit or debit card transaction involves up to four participants, one of which is a financial institution. These institutions are centralized and have to conform to various laws and regulations.
Because of that, an online gambling transaction involving a credit card or bank transfer can take up to a few days to complete in some cases, especially if the transfer is international and involves several centralized institutions.
Furthermore, it gets even worse when you are withdrawing funds from the casino and you have to go through various KYC before you can withdraw the money from your account.
In contrast, cryptocurrency transactions take only a few minutes to complete. The speed depends mostly on the network traffic and the coin you use, which is why most players use coins like Ethereum or Bitcoin for online gambling.
Alternatives to Crypto Payments
Of course, if you are not a fan of cryptocurrencies and still want to avoid using a credit or a debit card, we have some good news for you—many reputable online casinos offer a wide variety of payments methods, such as e-wallets and prepaid cards and vouchers.
E-wallets are electronic wallets that allow you to store funds, which you can connect to a casino to make deposits rather than using your credit card. Of course, you would still have to use your credit card info to add funds to your e-wallet, which is a separate issue. However, if e-wallets sound like something you would prefer more, the most popular e-wallets you can find in online casinos are Skrill, Neteller, ecoPayz, and Yandex.
Additionally, you can purchase prepaid cards like Paysafecard, AstroPay, and Boleto and simply use the provided code to add funds to your account without going through all the fuss of creating multiple accounts.
The Bottom Line
Online casinos often accept various payment methods, so there is always a way to avoid using credit cards and leaving sensitive information at online casinos.
See: Crypto Payments Report 2022: How digital currencies are revolutionizing commerce, corporates and culture
However, out of all the methods, playing with cryptocurrency is by far the most secure option.
At the same time, playing at a crypto casino also comes with a few advantages, making cryptocurrencies an ideal form of payment when playing at online casinos.
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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TikTok’s Real-time Payment Infrastructure Enabled by J.P. Morgan
Charged | George Iddenden | Jan 6, 2023
Image: Unsplash/Olivier Bergeron
TikTok parent ByteDance has been enlisting the help of J.P. Morgan for payments technology for its push to expand into more than two dozen markets and rich millions more users. The tie up marks just one piece of ByteDance’s broader push into the fintech sector.
- Revenue growth: Last year, users around the globe spent $3.4 billion on TikTok, up from $2 billion in 2021. Spending in the US more than tripled to $670 million from the year before, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower.
- JP. Morgan Payment tech: J.P. Morgan’s role in the push is to help ByteDance streamline these transactions by perfecting the way payments are sent and received. It claims the US-bank has built “a real-time payments infrastructure” for ByteDance that now allows its users “to be paid instantaneously and directly into their bank accounts at any day or time,” an improvement on its previous outdated e-wallets system.
- Enabled in the US and Europe, now “covers approximately one-fifth of TikTok’s 1 billion active users worldwide.”
- It also “allows real-time exchange of data between ByteDance and J.P. Morgan” so that ByteDance can “see and monitor payments,” the memo says.
See: Mark Zuckerberg: TikTok ‘Very Effective Competitor’. ‘Sort of Missed’ a Giant Shift in Social Networking
- Accounts: The Chinese tech firm also wants one centralised bank account for more than a dozen of its products, including TikTok and its Chinese-based sister app Douyin.
- HR: A number of J.P. Morgan executives have been poached by ByteDance for its global payments team
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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UN to Use Stellar-MoneyGram’s Aid Assist Program to Send USDC to Displaced Ukrainians
Kitco | Jordan Finneseth | Dec 16, 2022
Global payments company MoneyGram has announced a new partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the non-profit organization founded in 2014 to support the development and growth of the open-source Stellar (XLM) network, to launch Stellar Aid Assist.
- According to the project's website, Stellar Aid Assist is designed to help aid organizations deliver instant and transparent digital aid at scale utilizing a first-of-its-kind blockchain solution.
- The platform is said to “deliver relief funds quickly, affordably and efficiently to individuals in crisis,” such as people affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
See: $40 billion payments giant now accepting USDC stablecoin
- Stellar Development Foundation:
- The company responsible for issuing the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, and the Vibrant wallet application.
- A new back-end bulk disbursement system called the Stellar Disbursement Platform (SDP) was specifically designed to serve this purpose. “With the SDP, humanitarian aid organizations can pay thousands of people as easily as one person, even for small amounts typically too expensive to be cost-efficient in the legacy system”
- “By leveraging the unique strengths of the Stellar blockchain, Stellar Aid Assist enhances the speed, efficiency, and flexibility of traditional cash-based interventions, while providing greater transparency for organizations and their donors through the traceability of funds.”
- Problems being solved:
- Traditional methods of cash disbursement often require people to carry physical cash, which can put them at risk day-to-day and when crossing borders. They also often require the recipient to have access to a bank account to access the funds, which may not be possible in conflict or rural environments.
- Not only does it serve as a stable store of value, but these individuals can also exchange those digital dollars for local currency at thousands of MoneyGram locations.
See: Ukrainian President, Zelensky, Signs the ‘On Virtual Currency” Bill Legalizing Bitcoin
- UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) is turning to crypto to transfer USDC stablecoin (pegged to the U.S. dollar to eligible recipients' through the blockchain-based aid program (more)
Continue to the full article --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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