John Adams

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web. Today: Apple and Google Pay make headway in Germany; New payroll fintech debuts; Prepaid cryptocurrency card expands in Europe; A new collaboration offers intallment payments for travel.

Bank technology giants FIS and Fiserv are spending nearly $66 billion between them in just the past few weeks to add a broad swath of payments technology — including a few key nuggets that will help them go toe to toe with fintechs.

Given the size of the deal — which includes about $9 billion of Worldpay’s debt on top of a $34 billion bid — the pressure’s on to build a global powerhouse that can counter other major fintech mergers announced in the past weeks. FIS must also emerge as a nimble rival to the startups that threaten the old order.

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the Web. Today: FIS agrees to Worldpay deal; E-commerce sites hit with malware; Apple launches ad campaign; Reporter demos payment chip.

The financial services technology company FIS has agreed to buy Worldpay. The deal is valued at $43 billion and will allow FIS to counter the transaction processing scale Fiserv received when it acquired First Data this year. The merger price is based on a $34 billion bid plus $9 billion of Worldpay's debt.

Our annual Most Influential Women in Payments feature, now in its seventh year, highlights the women who are creating change and opportunities in the payments industry. For the first time, the editors of PaymentsSource have also recognized one woman for lifetime achievement.

First Data’s transformation over the past few years has involved much more than transaction automation, and has relied heavily on the creativity and ingenuity of executives such as Mia Shernoff.

A good way to gauge the future is to watch where technology money goes, and that makes Janet Bannister one of fintech’s best barometers.

Kikelomo Lawal, chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Interac Corp., has helped to drive a seismic shift in how Interac works, which means an evolution of how payments happen for Canadians.

Women are being driven from high-technology jobs by lingering male-dominated culture, and Christine Lee is calling on colleagues with high-profile positions to take responsibility for changing that.