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New PayPal cashback business credit card launches for US small businesses

The new PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard® is among the industry’s leading cashback business credit cards with no annual fee and 2% cashback on all purchases with no limit to the cashback that can be earned – helping small business owners get rewarded as they make business purchases.


PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) today announced it is expanding its suite of credit offerings to include a new business credit card to better meet the everyday financing needs of small business owners. The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard, issued by WebBank and powered by the Mastercard network, is the first business credit card offered through PayPal. The card has no annual fee and rewards cardholders with 2% cashback on all purchases with no rewards earning caps or expiration, making it among the highest cashback rewards value available.

The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard offers a simple way for businesses to pay for both everyday business expenses and those that may unexpectedly arise, while also earning cashback rewards on all purchases. Approved businesses are provided immediate access to their assigned credit limit through a virtual card that is automatically integrated into the business’s PayPal account and is immediately available as a payment method when merchants check out with PayPal. Account and spending details are easily accessed through the cardholder’s PayPal Business account.

Small businesses need an array of tools to fund their everyday business expenses in a flexible manner. According to the 2022 Small Business Credit Survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Banks, credit cards were the second most common form of financing sought by small businesses.1 The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard offers SMB owners the opportunity to qualify for a business credit card.

“As small business owners continue to recover from the challenges of the past two years, having multiple financing options to address their capital needs is more important than ever,” said Bernardo Martinez, Vice President of Global Merchant Lending, PayPal. “The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard provides merchants greater value, more choice and the increased flexibility they need to manage their business finances, offering among the best value available on no annual fee business credit cards today. This new solution continues PayPal’s commitment to supporting small businesses and offering options to help manage the day-to-day costs of operating their business.”

The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard was developed in conjunction with Austin-based Concerto Card Company, WebBank and Mastercard to provide PayPal merchants with access to a high quality, high value, small business credit card. Cardholder benefits include:

  • 2% cashback on all purchases without a limit on cashback earned or category restrictions
  • No annual fee
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Competitive APR for purchases ranging from 13.99%-29.99%
  • Virtual card that can be used immediately upon approval when merchants check out with PayPal, in addition to a physical contactless card
  • Free employee cards with separate account numbers
  • Enhanced Mastercard benefits, including a 2-Year Extended Warranty on purchases, Cell Phone Protection, and access to discounts through Easy Savings™ and Mastercard’s Digital Merchant Offers, among other features
  • Advanced security features, including Mastercard ID Theft Protection™ and Zero Liability, in addition to 24/7/365 Global Emergency Services
  • Consolidated billing to eliminate expense reports and reimbursements
  • Integration within PayPal’s merchant platform to access transactions, balances, available credit, and rewards
  • Available for use at more than 90 million merchant locations worldwide – anywhere Mastercard is accepted

“Small businesses are a force multiplier for our economy, and it’s critical to ensure that they have access to digital tools and solutions that support their needs and growth,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president, Digital Partnerships, Mastercard. “The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard is tailor-made to support small business owners navigating their day-to-day operations. Coupling dynamic, flexible payments technology with compelling rewards and resources, we’re proud to team up with PayPal to deliver tremendous value and access to small business owners in the US.”

“PayPal’s mission to democratize financial services for all – businesses and consumers – closely aligns to Concerto’s corporate strategy,” said Dan Duncan, CEO and co-founder, Concerto Card Company. “Our goal is to provide the tools necessary for businesses to be successful – and the PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard helps both companies advance their respective missions.”

“Providing small businesses with credit to manage their business needs is a key area of focus at WebBank,” said Jason Lloyd, President & CEO, WebBank. “We appreciate the opportunity to work with PayPal, Mastercard and Concerto Card Company to make the PayPal Cashback Business Mastercard available to small businesses.”

PayPal continues to support small businesses by providing more ways to accept payments, grow their business and access financing solutions, including PayPal Working Capital, PayPal Business Loans, and now the PayPal Cashback Business Mastercard.

More information about the PayPal Business Credit Card can be found at http://paypal.com/businesscreditcard

 

1 Based on the 2022 Small Business Credit Survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Banks, September through November of 2021 involving 11,000 US small businesses (below 500 heads).

The PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard® is issued by WebBank pursuant to a license by Mastercard International and serviced by Concerto Card Company. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated.

The lender for PayPal Business Loan and PayPal Working Capital is WebBank, Member FDIC.

 

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CardNav empowers members across all Co-op debit and credit channels

Card controls and alerts are valued by busy and security-conscious members for a variety of purposes, including the ability to turn it off should the card be lost; setting limits and budgets in cases of joint ownership between parents and children; setting controls around travel; and better equipping cardholders in the fight against fraud. CardNav® by Co-op was the first-to-market mobile card controls and alerts app, so credit unions have been able to offer this level of functionality to their cardholders since 2014. From then on, CardNav has been empowering members to decide when, where and how their cards are used – in advance and in real time.

“CardNav provides transaction-level card alerts and controls via personal smartphones and tablets, which reduces the opportunities for fraudulent transactions while giving members a sense of control over their cards, all of which lends itself to a better member experience,” said Dr. Kathy Snider, Senior Vice President, Engage Solutions Line, for CO-OP Financial Services. “CardNav protects members while also giving credit unions the access they need to provide direct support. Credit union staff can view CardNav account activity and make changes on a member’s behalf, furthering cardholder confidence and providing the personalized experience members desire.”

CardNav Blog Statistics

Flexible Integration Options

Co-op offers credit unions multiple ways to integrate CardNav with the credit union’s brand at the center, including:

  1. Credit union-branded standalone app with configurable options available in the app store
  2. Credit union-branded “Companion” app, linked to the institution’s current mobile banking solution
  3. An API that integrates with the credit union’s existing mobile banking app

Integration flexibility for the credit union is something Jerry Bettens, Chief Information Officer for Michigan First Credit Union, believes is vital in the highly competitive card market. “Offering controls and alerts is becoming something our members expect,” said Bettens. “How you deliver that functionality is the part that can truly make your credit union standout.

CardNav Quote

Features Designed Exclusively for Cardholders

CardNav is easier, faster and more convenient for cardholders, helping credit unions stay ahead of consumer expectations. Members can set spending limits (giving parents more control over shared cards with children, for example) and can temporarily turn off and turn back on a lost card with the new features.

The integration of fingerprint and facial login to authenticate app users makes the mobile experience more user-friendly and secure for members.

Activating CardNav at Your Credit Union

By giving members a single view of their entire card experience, both credit and debit, credit unions can enhance member loyalty while growing one of their most profitable assets.

To learn more about how CardNav can help you empower your members by arming them with a tool that puts control and security into their hands, reach out to your Co-op Client Business Executive or contact us at 800.782.9042 or solutions@coop.org.

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Ongoing Operations’ (OGO) Board of Directors announces new CEO

June 28, 2022 – Ongoing Operations’ (OGO) Board of Directors announced today that Steve Bone has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of the company.  Steve replaces Kirk Drake who has been instrumental to the success of OGO for over 17 years.

Steve joined OGO in 2021 as the Chief Operating Officer bringing 30 years of prior experience in the Financial Services IT space.  He has previously led teams at FIS, CAPCO, Q2 and First Entertainment Credit Union.  Steve has served in a wide breadth of executive roles and has worked in over 20 countries.  His hands-on technical experience includes large scale software implementation projects along with leading a global managed operations organization, as well as serving as the CIO of a Credit Union.

“Based on Steve’s prior success in leading large scale Information Technology initiatives and his contribution since joining Ongoing Operations, we have complete confidence in his ability to lead the company moving forward” stated Chairman of the Board, Steve Salzer.

Steve is committed to continuing Ongoing Operations’ strategy of  delivering advanced Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Cyber Security, and IT hosting services.  The existing OGO management team and employees will continue to focus on delivering highly responsive and predictable services that provide measurable business value to credit unions.

“I greatly appreciate the support I have received from Kirk. the Board of Directors, and the entire OGO team.  The OGO team is filled with incredibly talented individuals.  We intend to be recognized as the premier provider of IT services for the Credit Union industry, and it is an honor to be asked to lead this organization” stated newly appointed CEO, Steve Bone.

Kirk Drake will continue his role as the CEO of CU 2.0 along with serving as an advisor to OGO’s Board and assist Ongoing Operations with targeted business development activities.

Ongoing Operations is a CUSO that was launched in 2005.  They currently serve over 100 credit unions covering most of the continental United States plus Hawaii.

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Is your digitization program actually reducing security risks?

Going digital is essential for businesses, but partial digitization might lead to security problems in the future.

We know that companies relying on mailed or faxed documents when selling to customers are still living in a manual world. However, even accepting scanned documents by email isn’t true digitization. Many organizations have only partially digitized their buying and lending processes – and that opens them up to significant risk of fraud and other attacks.

Digitization projects often stall before they’re complete. Deloitte has warned that while 85% of CEOs accelerated digital transformation initiatives during the pandemic, most can’t articulate their progress beyond the fact that they made an investment.

While consulting firms espouse advanced digitization concepts like AI, data suggests that many companies are still struggling to cope with basic tasks. For example, two-thirds of companies are still grappling with document storage.

The danger of fragmented processes 

This disorganized approach to digitization creates potential security risks in a process already fraught with cybersecurity challenges. More than four in five respondents to a Ponemon Research survey believed that they had suffered a data breach as a result of digital transformation.

Failing to fully digitize a process risks fragmenting it, leaving steps that are still reliant on manual input and even the use of paper-based documents. It creates weak spots in the process structure that attackers can exploit for their illicit ends. The assets involved in the buying process are sensitive, typically involving money and even personal data. However it could also put other assets at risk through the introduction of ransomware or other malware.

Accounting for the human factor 

Some of the cybersecurity risks involved in partial digitization stem from simple oversight. Whenever a human is in the loop, errors can creep in. A combination of distraction, tiredness, and overwork can lead to costly mistakes.

Some incidents are often down to malice rather than mere mistake. Fraudsters frequently use social engineering techniques to dupe business victims, convincing them to send payments to illicit bank accounts.

This type of fraud, collectively known as business email compromise (BEC), often comes in the form of fake invoices sent to vendors. An invoice delivered in paper or email form without going through automated verification processes might slip through manual checks, causing the victim company to send money to criminals.

A variation on this theme is mandate fraud. Here, the criminal impersonates a legitimate vendor and persuades the payee to change their bank details on file to a fraudulent account. Then the fraudster collects payments that should have gone to the original payee.

These attacks started simply but have become more sophisticated over time as victims have awoken to the problem. BEC fraud continues to be a major problem. The FBI estimates that victims have lost $43bn to these attacks between October 2016 and December 2021.

BEC can hit consumers too. Criminals have targeted high-value industries such as real estate and financial services to scam individuals. In Atlanta, one man was jailed after collecting more than $247,000 in fraudulent funds from home buyers. He called his victims and impersonated their realtors, asking them to wire funds to fraudulent business accounts. An automated process on the realtor’s side, along with an educational session warning the home buyer against such attacks, would have helped avert disaster.

Forgeries 

Forgery is another form of fraud that can subvert partially digitized buying processes. Modern technology makes it far easier for people to forge documents today, creating convincing IDs and other assets that might fool individuals that are tasked with checking them manually. What would have taken a scalpel, glue, carefully chosen paper, and a typewriter back in the day now can be accomplished on a smartphone. There are even online criminal services that will produce these documents for attacks.

Another example of criminal innovation is the use of synthetic IDs. These combinations of fake and real personal information are difficult to spot because there’s often no individual victim to raise the alarm. Compounding the problem is the fact that only half of synthetic ID fraudsters apply for fraud using digital channels.

Automation is key 

All of these fraudulent attacks can be launched using digital documents. Fake invoices and invoice mandate attacks can arrive via email, as can forged or synthetic identity details. This highlights a key takeaway: accepting digital documents via email isn’t enough to truly digitize a buying process. A human employee can be just as easily fooled by an emailed digital document as by a paper-based one.

A fully digitized system involves extra measures. One of these is control over the specific channels used to submit information in the buying process. This prevents the phishing emails and telephone calls that criminals use to perpetrate these frauds. It enables companies to impose appropriate access controls for document submissions.

This measure is part of a broader approach that is crucial to the digitization process: automation. Any part of the buying process relying entirely on human input with no automated checks will be more vulnerable to attack. Automating things from end-to-end, potentially using third-party notarization and identity verification services, is a crucial part of the digitization journey.

It’s time to build digital trust 

Companies that take these final steps to digitization stand to make big gains. Digital trust is a top requirement for consumers as data breaches keep hitting the headlines. PwC found protection of personal data tops consumers’ lists of trust criteria, with 62% citing it as a key factor. That’s a statistic that all CEOs should note, given that half of all consumers base their purchasing behavior on how much they trust a vendor.

Complete end-to-end digitization will do more than reduce your cybersecurity risk – it will build better relationships with your customers. That helps to reduce bottom-line losses from fraud while also helping to bolster revenues.

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Digital transformation is key driver of improved member experience for credit unions

For credit unions to stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world of financial services, they need to fully embrace and integrate digital solutions.

Declining consumer satisfaction indicates that credit unions aren’t meeting member expectations for digital services – and this erosion threatens credit unions as top-of-mind financial service providers.

Going all in on digital means simultaneously addressing two sides of the same coin: transforming internal operations and integrating digital solutions to drive engagement with members whose lifestyles – and needs – are quickly evolving.

Today’s credit union members (and consumers generally) are moving at their own speed. And that speed is fast.

They are “digital nomads” who are comfortable patching together financial solutions from a variety of providers to meet their own, unique lifestyle needs. They also no longer feel the need to show loyalty to any single financial institution or financial services provider.

Digital Payments

Fintechs understand this, and that’s why they are winning on digital engagement and payments. According to Co-op’s CU Growth Outlook research, conducted in partnership with EY and Filene, fintechs are harnessing payment products to accelerate growth and take over the marketplace. For example, PayPal experienced five times the relative growth in primary financial relationships and Chime showed 18 times growth. Meanwhile, 41% of respondents would consider leaving a credit union because the products don’t meet their current needs.

This trend is particularly true of younger millennials and Gen Z. They know what they want, and they expect to have access to all the tools to do their banking anytime, anywhere and on their own busy schedule.

For credit unions to deepen lifestyle engagement and own the primary financial relationship, they need to deliver the full member experience, and develop a new definition of member-centricity. Digital technology is a critical piece of this puzzle, and a way to enhance the member relationship.

A New Definition of Member-centricity for a Digital Future

The new definition of member-centricity relies on three keys to gaining active primary financial relationships:

  1. Know your members like never before: Traditional banking presumes increased financial needs and complexity over time. However, this approach no longer meets members’ needs, as evidenced by the fact that less than 50% of young people own the financial products they need to be fully prepared for a life event, and that, on average, consumers own five banking relationships across different financial institutions.

    To combat this, credit unions should pursue a multi-dimensional strategy that considers traditional, demographic-based market segmentation (e.g., gender, age, wealth tier, marital status, geography), coupled with a needs-based segmentation that incorporates life events, lifestyles and a mix of solutions that address both.

    The key lies in activating a strategy of Lifestyle Enablement — creating active, daily engagement with your members aimed at being the hub for financial well-being. In fact, our research finds that by adjusting their product offerings to offer a mix of “high valued” and “standard” lifestyle banking features, credit unions can achieve a 34% increase in member market share, and 40% growth among prospects.

The New Member Centricity Framework
    1. Be their choice for every moment: Consumers have bifurcated their PFRs between a primary savings institution (read: “passive”) and a primary transactional interface (read: “active”). Whereas credit unions are in a strong position with regard to passive relationships (ranked #1 for loans, savings and checking in Co-op 2021 CU PaymentsOutlook survey), fintechs have achieved the top slot in active relationships (and credit unions fall to #3).

      Placing payments at the center of the member relationship is key. According to research from Accenture, 80% of people’s interactions with their financial institution are through payments. Payment products like contactless, P2P and mobile wallets drive more engagement, and form the heart of these active, transactional relationships.

      The ability to activate deep insights from the payment data you already have at your credit union is vital to understanding your members’ behavior and unlocking actionable growth opportunities. Credit unions can gain real-time access to cardholder account information – all in one place through a single, simple-to-use web application. Coupled with strategic guidance from leading industry experts, such as those on Co-op’s SmartGrowth team, this makes for a powerful combination.

 

  1. Embrace the power of connection: Fintechs have risen to relationship primacy over the past few years through the deployment of innovative digital technology and solutions. The pathway to primacy for credit unions will require accelerating their investment in digital capabilities and bridging the gap between their digital and non-digital channels, which will enable them to deliver financial well-being through digital tools.

    Consumer behavior and desires are trending toward digital tools that improve financial well-being. Daily movement and management of money behaviors lead consumer preferences and reinforce the need for active relationships with members.

    According to the Co-op CU Growth Outlook report, one-third of respondents, especially younger demographics, report needing any form of digital payment to be prepared for relevant life events. All respondents ranked spending behaviors, viewing personal trends and cross management of payment/financial sources as the top insights they are looking to obtain to manage their daily finances.

    To compete with the fintechs, your credit union needs to offer a full complement of digital, self-service payment products. Members desire the convenience of making payments anywhere and anytime, whether via their favorite eCommerce sites using their preferred digital wallets like Google PayTM, Apple Pay® or Samsung PayTM, or in-store through the touchless capabilities of a contactless card. You also need the ability to deliver digital credit and debit credentials instantly through digital card issuance.

    It also means growing member engagement by keeping their payment activities within your digital banking ecosystem, by offering solutions like P2P Payments through Zelle®, a fast, safe way for members to send money securely to friends and family.

    It’s critical that every interaction with your credit union is simple and easy for your members. This includes offering self-service digital card controls and alerts, along with robust loyalty rewards programs, based on lifestyle needs. Beyond payments, it’s important to engage your members where and when they need it most, through mobile-friendly online loan applications and new member onboarding capabilities.

Co-op’s role is to provide credit unions with the right tools and show them how to use them. Not by simply offering a web of discrete solutions – but by helping you to connect the dots. Reach out to us for help in navigating the rapidly changing world of financial services as you fully embrace your digital evolution.

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