Kate Fitzgerald

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web. Today: Alipay makes a move in Russia; Google Pay expands transit support; Unicef adds crypto; BofA's hiring blockchain experts.

Intuit has partnered with Visa to enable QuickBooks users to get faster access to funds through Visa Direct, the network’s debit push payments service.

The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web. Today: PayPal loses on its Uber investment; Rapyd gets a license in Singapore; Masabi builds interoperable transit payments in Ohio; Binance finds partners for crypto in China.

Following a two-year pilot, several Sri Lanka banks are rolling out co-branded credit and debit cards connecting LankaPay, the local payments network, with Japan’s JCB brand, extending the cards’ reach to any global merchant or ATM that accepts JCB.

Small merchants often have to squeeze a hodgepodge of hardware onto their counters to manage government electronic benefit transfers, a distinct niche Novo Dia Group is working to solve with an investment from Square.

Contactless payment transaction volume is soaring in Canada to the point where total credit card transaction volume is edging out debit card transactions for the first time because many consumers are using credit cards to tap and pay.

NatWest is expanding its test of cards that use biometric fingerprints to authorize transactions, citing expanded use cases for contactless payments in the U.K.

Samsung Pay users can use the app to send funds across borders to recipients with a bank account through a new service powered by Travelex.

Seeking relief from rising synthetic fraud, U.S. companies next year will be able to quickly verify whether Social Security numbers match other consumer data in government files, in a bid to thwart fraudsters from creating fake identities with stolen information and SSNs.

Tennessee-based Tractor Supply Co. originally sold farming tools by mail, but digital technology has put the expanding 81-year-old company at the forefront of loyalty marketing.

Mastercard has developed a service called Threat Scan to help card issuers get ahead of fraudsters by running scans on their card authorization systems based on the latest evolving global card scams.

How PayPal obtained a payments license to operate in China — an achievement that’s long frustrated the biggest U.S. banks and payments networks — sheds light on the unique challenges of breaking into the world’s biggest payments market.

When health care executive Raj Rajamannar joined Mastercard as marketing chief six years ago, his background at Humana and WellPoint hinted at a different perspective.

Mastercard signaled a new direction for corporate payments when it bought VocaLink a few years ago, and the company’s emerging vision for a B2B payments network suggests a new challenge for its commercial cards business.

Visa has launched an online portal for fintechs to explore payments technology and find resources such as shortcuts to applying for fintech licenses.

PayPal must pay a fine to the U.K.’s top financial watchdog for failing to keep its operations completely separate from iZettle while authorities investigated competitive effects of PayPal's purchase of the Sweden-based mobile POS provider.

Fair Isaac Corp. has added a platform alongside its 25-year-old FICO Falcon fraud-detection solution for credit and debit cards that aims to ferret out risky and fraudulent real-time payments.

Infosys has joined Visa B2B Connect, a four-month old Visa hub that cuts indirect processes and intermediaries out of global business transactions.

TouchBistro, an iPad-based restaurant order-and-payment system, has reaped $120 million in a new funding round led by Canadian pension fund Omers, with JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, BMO Capital Partners also participating.

Arguing more work is needed in the wake of new security protocols, Nets will team with KPMG to jointly develop machine learning-powered fraud monitoring and prevention.