John Adams

The $29 billion purchase of the Australian installment lender would bring larger retail relationships, as well as a fast-growing product that has appeal to both consumers and merchants.

The $29 billion deal would enable Square to better compete with PayPal and Apple, and provide an opportunity to cross-sell other services to the Australian lender's global audience.

A posting for a digital currency job at Amazon stirred speculation that the e-commerce giant might begin accepting bitcoin at checkout. The company denies that — and experts say it has many other ways to make the most of its intended hire.

The card brand has been pitching itself as a testing ground for central bank digital currencies, a payment portal for stablecoins and — most recently — an accelerator for startups.

The card brand's recent deals to buy Tink and Currencycloud for a combined $3 billion are meant to give it a stronger presence in fast-growing fintech markets.

Western central banks trying to develop sovereign cryptocurrency models face pushback from lawmakers and other obstacles, while the digital yuan has a much clearer path.

These nine fintechs have made their market debuts or signaled plans to do so in the past few weeks, continuing a robust year for both IPOs and e-commerce.

CEO Stephen Squeri told analysts a fresh crop of rivals, possibly including Wells Fargo, will be quick to fill the void created by Citi's departure from the high-end market.

Buying the cross-border payment and software company can help the card brand provide more services to fast-growing challenger banks.

While pandemic restrictions cloud the sector's outlook, the London-based payment and fintech company is making hotel booking and other services part of its financial super app strategy.

The European Union has updated value-added-tax regulations that predate digital payments, hoping to reduce compliance burdens for foreign online sellers and simplify consumer billing.

The Reserve Bank of India says the card brand failed to comply with a requirement to store transaction details locally. The handling of payment information has become a point of contention between the Asian nation and American firms.

The technology holds great promise for financial services, but it could be just as powerful for scammers looking to break payment card encryption. Visa, Mastercard and others are already building new defenses.

The card brand is working with 70 cryptocurrency companies to meet consumer demand for paying in bitcoin and other digital currencies at the point of sale. It had little choice given that most retailers don't accept crypto directly and are in no rush to do so.

Novus, a startup whose app helps consumers make environmentally conscious purchases, is using application programming interfaces provided by the two companies to expand quickly. The effort shows how open banking can extend the reach of small companies and create new business lines for larger ones.

The bank is piloting fingerprint-reading cards that work with existing payment terminals. Its goals are to strengthen security for large transactions and to inform future deployments in other markets.

The national debit network Interac is working with Payments Canada, which oversees the country's payment system, on an instant payment rail while demand from local shoppers and a need for faster supply chain finance grow more pronounced.

Shoppers surveyed in the U.S., U.K. and Australia cited concerns about debt and fees, along with a general lack of knowledge about how installment loans work, as reasons for their skepticism.

The hospitality chain and its fintech partner Bakkt are trying to tap into the crypto craze by asking guests if they would prefer the valuable (yet volatile) cryptocurrency over free stays or room upgrades.