Europe

Mastercard has promoted divisional president Mark Barnett as its new European president to succeed Javier Perez, who is retiring at the end of the year.

Worldline has acquired a 53% stake in Czech Republic-based GoPay, furthering an Eastern European expansion effort with an option to acquire the remaining shares in 2022.

CaixaBank and Global Payments are building on a series of partnerships to build a joint prepaid venture in Europe.

Mastercard is part of an expanding trend toward easing restrictions to entice consumers to choose contactless payments over cash and plastic during the coronavirus.

Challenger bank bunq has expanded its card partnership with Mastercard to cover 30 European countries as it grows its mobile only footprint coupled with its Green Card.

Following the lead of open banking regulation in Europe, payments technology provider Elavon is working with Nuapay in the U.K. to provide account-to-account payment setups for its merchant clients.

London-based Checkout.com views the acquisition of ProcessOut and its data analytics platform as a complement for its end-to-end payments service, as it seeks to build strength in the European market and eyes further expansion into Asia Pacific.

Barca, as one of the world’s most popular football clubs is known, will issue tokens for use on a fan-engagement platform.

TBI Bank is an early regional adopter of a program that allows SEPA instant faster payments for digital lending clients.

Marqeta has been certified as a European card processor with Mastercard to help digital banks issue cards more quickly, signing Twisto as the first customer of the collaboration.

So far this year, Lloyds and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks have had payment failures in the U.K. And in the U.S., a software glitch at parking technology vendor Parkeon halted digital payments at meters in New York and other cities.

Worldline and CashSentinel will work on services that will fit requirements for traditional online marketplaces for physical products, franchise systems, self-checkout solutions and smart city apps.

In theory, the beauty of e-commerce is that a merchant can court any shopper in any part of the world with an internet connection. In practice, attracting a shopper and providing them with the customer experience they expect will look different in every country, says Lee Clifton of JP Morgan Merchant Services.

Negative benchmark interest rates are becoming commonplace in Europe and Japan. Here’s what US credit unions need to know in case that happens here.

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.