John Adams

The point-of-sale lender is teaming up with Fiserv to streamline its onboarding process for merchants. It's part of Affirm's effort to differentiate itself as more banks and fintechs enter the highly competitive buy now/pay later market.

Paul Stoddart joins the U.K. company at a crucial time. A specialist in account-to-account transfers, GoCardless sees an opportunity to capitalize on friction over interchange rates.

The card company and financial institutions are collaborating with cross-border settlement platform Carbonplace to improve processing and risk management for environmentally-focused transactions.

Card issuers have pushed for more direct access to iPhones for years, and with the tech giant's policies facing fresh political and legal heat, Wells Fargo exec Ukrike Guigui says a more open mobile payment market would benefit merchants and consumers.

The standards body's new guidance would prevent vendors from managing multiple protocols in different countries.

The bank is working with invoicing vendor IFG to simplify the process of paying multiple suppliers.

Shortly after the reveal of Stripe Financial Connections, the CEO of its longtime partner Plaid took to Twitter to accuse the company of exploiting their relationship to build the new service. At stake is the growing market for digital transactions.

Environmental impact calculators, fee reductions and carbon offsets are becoming part of the playbook for BNY Mellon, Visa, Mastercard, Klarna and others.

The card network is making new security tools part of its expansion into non-payment services, hoping it can combat fraud that comes from its own account holders.

A new product called Financial Connections links businesses directly to customers' banks, giving the payment technology vendor a feature that makes it a direct competitor to data-fueled fintechs.

In global news this week, Grab gets approval to offer digital banking in Malaysia; Italy's post office invests $27 million in a a buy now/pay later lender; Apple struggles to appease Dutch regulators; and more.

"Apple may have restricted competition, to the benefit of its own solution Apple Pay," Margrethe Vestagar of the European Commission said. It's an accusation Apple's fought many times across the globe.

About two dozen banks in the U.S. and Europe, including ABN Amro and Bank of America, are working with The Clearing House and EBA Clearing, using technology from SWIFT, to make instant international transactions ubiquitous for business and e-commerce sales.

The global microchip shortage is being exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine and the COVID lockdowns in China. Experts are warning of an impending strain on the manufacture of cards and point-of-sale hardware.

The recovery for airline and related spending has been robust — and thus far immune to geopolitical and inflationary pressures — according to the card network, following similar reports from Visa and American Express.

The country was a large part of the card brand's cross-border digital business, though expansion in other markets and new services will help offset the negative impact, according to CEO Alfred Kelly.

The card network will use artificial intelligence to improve authentication via its latest team-up with the tech giant.

While most consumer sectors have been going digital, many physicians' offices, hospitals and clinics cling to a reimbursement system that relies heavily in printed statements, checks and manual processing.

In global news this week, The Bank of London named Tom Wood its next deputy chief executive for the United Kingdom market, Tencent began testing a digital wallet that supports transactions in e-CNY China's central bank digital currency, Uber's online order and delivery platform expanded its payment acceptance choices to include Rakuten Pay, and more.

Nandan Sheth hopes his experience as a fintech founder and as an executive with firms such as Fiserv will help the installment lender become a better partner for card issuers.