Australia

A banking union calls the reversal by Commonwealth Bank "a massive win," but warns the fight to protect human jobs from AI replacement isn't over.

The U.K. challenger bank would follow London fintech Wise in emphasizing New York over London in an effort to boost valuation and establish a foothold in the U.S. Plus, Lloyds is in talks to buy all-in-one card fintech Curve; and more news in the global payments and fintech roundup.

U.K. regulators said Monzo didn't properly vet new customers, while Vocalink was dinged for risk management lapses. Also, Paxos launched a dollar-backed coin in the European Union; and more news in the weekly global payments and fintech roundup.

The bank technology is launching its signature payment platform in a country where rivals like Square and PayPal are also actively chasing business payments.

The bank's new Seattle hub will focus on artificial intelligence, generative models, and cloud innovation, close to partners like AWS and Anthropic.

The country's central bank cited geopolitical uncertainty and the increased reliance on digital payments as a reason to focus on offline payments as a backup. Also, a look at U.K. bank outages and other news in American Banker's global payments and fintech roundup.

The U.S. bank was unable to fully sell a block of shares in Australia's Goodman Group it had underwritten for China's sovereign wealth fund.

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.

The Australian bank's stakes in technology firms Little Birdie and Amber add price shopping for point of sale credit and bill pay.

The country's banks and fintechs are still new to working together, giving Railsbank a chance to become a key player in open banking.

The decision comes after a decade in which several U.S.-based institutions elected to drop the words "credit union" from their branding.

Openpay, the latest firm to enter the U.S.’s booming buy now, pay later instant-credit market, has hired a team clearly braced for heavier competition and regulation ahead.

Two large deals happened this week in Australia to build scale against international financial services encroachment from card schemes and cross-border financial services — a concern that's cropping up in several nations.

Afterpay has entered into an agreement with NBQ Corporate SLU to acquire Pagantis SAU and PMT Technology SLU for €50 million (about $59 million) to expand into France, Italy and Spain — a direct challenge to Klarna, one of the dominant European buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers.

Brisbane, Australia-based EML has partnered with the New Zealand buy now, pay later fintech Laybuy to leverage digital cards for in-store and online retail purchases.

Afterpay has launched a version of its online installment payment method for in-store use in the U.S. by leveraging Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Commonwealth of Australia (CBA) reports digital wallet users spent a AUS$1 billion (about $630 million) in March 2020, a high for the bank that's part of an acceleration to digital wallets and contactless cards during the coronavirus crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced Irish fintech Prepaid Financial Services Limited (PFS) to drop its sale price by $117 million to close its deal with EML payments Limited.

Australia’s Airwallex group is seeking about $200 million in a series D equity funding round to bankroll its cross-border payments business globally, according to people familiar with the matter.

Afterpay, whose online installment loans are seeing strong growth in the U.S. apparel sector, has partnered with Oakland, Calif.-based processor Marqeta to develop additional payment products and services.