Europe

EML has agreed to pay £226 million (US$290 million) to acquire Prepaid Financial Services, one of Europe’s largest e-money issuers.

The adoption of payment cards over cash varies by nation, but debit ruled nearly everywhere on the continent.

Isolationist politics are creeping closer to the payments industry, with European banks threatening to build a localized payment ecosystem to push back against the major American card brands.

U.S. banks are trying to answer a key question about open banking: Can we share our data with payment companies and other fintechs without scrapping our legacy systems? The answer is yes, with an asterisk.

As anti-money laundering requirements tighten in many jurisdictions, financial institutions and fraud prevention platforms are ditching legacy AML solutions for newer technology — but alternatives aren’t easy to come by yet.

Even though security vendors and payments providers are telling merchants they are ready to provide compliance for PSD2 on Sept. 14, a significant challenge remains in the learning curve and technology needs for merchants.

Merchants won an extension to comply with PSD2’s new customer authentication rules, but as new rules for issuers go into effect next week, TSYS is rolling out tools that aim to do double duty.

Seven European mobile payment firms have formed a cross-border transaction association covering an addressable market covering 25 million users and 350 banks.

Alibaba has added Adyen as a processor, giving the Chinese e-commerce giant an added option to acquire merchants to feed its business for Chinese travelers.

Banks, for the most part, have not advanced their core digital technologies as quickly as payments networks and disruptors ahead of the original PSD2 deadline. And the European Banking Authority has also cited the payments networks for not advancing the 3D Secure 2.0 online authentication model far enough to comply with PSD2 provisions.