John Adams

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.