Canada

Walmart is already a retail heavyweight, and it has never shied from innovative projects to change the way people pay.

Royal Bank of Canada posted its highest domestic net interest margin in five years, pushing quarterly earnings past analysts' estimates and boosting annual profit from its Canadian banking division to a record.

A period of churn in Canadian airline loyalty is nearing an end as Air Canada moves ahead with a deal to take over its old loyalty program, Aeroplan, and keep its partner banks on board.

Paysafe has partnered with Paytm Canada, the Toronto-based division of Indian mobile payments juggernaut Paytm, to improve the capabilities of Paytm's Canadian app, which currently supports utility and bill payments.

Chinese tourists visiting the U.S. and Canada will be able to use Alipay at HMSHost-operated restaurants in most major airports.

This week marks the official start of Canada’s legalized recreational cannabis industry — and American Express, Visa and Mastercard are ready to handle the new market's payments, in a stark contrast to their stance in the U.S.

Banks are still in their experimental phase of using virtual and augmented reality to interact with customers, and the key to their success will be embracing the technology's social nature. And sometimes that means making an app designed for non-customers.

Despite the real-world use cases being found around blockchain and distributed ledger technology, banks are being warned to be cautious about committing to any such projects.

Comparing the U.K. payments landscape to that of the U.S. is sometimes like comparing apples to oranges according to Ankit Kumar, manager of digital payments and mobile financial services at Gemalto.

The push for faster payments in the U.S. has suffered from the lack of a government mandate, which in other countries resulted in a common, streamlined system. Now it's time for the disparate U.S. platforms to come together.