Europe

Supermarkets and other retailers reported rejected transactions after a network glitch, causing some to quickly deploy cash-only checkouts.

Wirecard and Enio, an Austria-based supplier of electric car charging stations throughout Europe, are collaborating to enable contactless payments at thousands of sites.

YellowPepper's strategic investment from Visa as part of a $12.5 million Series D funding round gives the company a chance to expand beyond its focus on Latin America and into new markets such as Europe and Asia.

European payment gateway SIA has agreed to acquire First Data's card processing in a group of countries in Eastern Europe.

Development is happening in places besides London and Silicon Valley, and that will give payment companies and financial institutions a wider range of technology solutions and partners, according to Aidan Hayes, senior vice president of financial services and technology for Enterprise Ireland.

Businesses are already entering partnerships with some of the biggest players in the Chinese payments market, such as AliPay, and WeChat Pay, with the goal of offering tourists the ease of payments that they are accustomed to, writes Igal Rotem, CEO of Credorax.

Wirecard has partnered with Garmin to enable payment acceptance at contactless-enabled payment terminals across Europe through boon, Wirecard’s mobile payment platform.

The open banking model is not very different from what Amazon brought about in retail. Banks have little choice but to embrace the concept, according to Nick Frankland, managing director of fintech at Legal and General.

The bank and European air carriers are hoping to cut into air fare payment fees that are as high as $8 billion per year.

Wirecard has expanded capabilities of its boon digital payment app by partnering with Fitbit so customers in Europe may make contactless payments with the Fitbit Ionic or Fitbit Versa smartwatch models.