David Heun

An acquisition as large as Fiserv's deal to buy First Data has lots of moving parts, but one big piece may be a new First Data product that's designed to improve the vexing problem of payment approvals.

Facebook grabbed the spotlight this week with the announcement of its Libra cryptocurrency initiative, and its list of high-profile supporters suggests that it's the only game in town. But banks have their own projects in the works.

MoneyGram International will use Ripple's blockchain to boost foreign exchange settlement for international payments.

Spanish bank BBVA and duty-free travel retailer Dufry are partnering to accept mobile payments from China's WeChat Pay at the Madrid airport.

Dutch banks ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank have started transferring their ATMs to the Geldmaat network in the Netherlands to address the decline of cash use among its customers, while continuing to make it available.

Financing and payment technology provider Sunbit has received $26 million in a Series B funding round through Zeev Ventures and participants Group 11 and Chicago Ventures.

China's UnionPay hopes to boost its reach in Italy by about a third, and has turned to local Italian acquirer Nexi to increase acceptance of UnionPay cards in stores and e-commerce.

The Clearing House's Real-Time Payments hasn't grown as fast as it would like, but recent small-bank adoption is providing momentum for a network that assumes the Federal Reserve won't start its own real-time service.

Bento for Business is taking a page out of the Venmo P2P playbook in launching its own Bento Pay instant payment app for higher-value B2B payments.

Banks and merchants absorb billions of dollars in payment card fraud annually, but it's not for a lack of tools designed to stifle that fraud. It's becoming increasingly apparent that those tools simply aren't being used to their fullest capabilities.