Europe

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.

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.

Payment companies have made substantial investments into new identity rules in Europe, but the deadline has become a moving target with different agencies offering conflicting or unclear guidance.

The question of upgrading to 3D Secure 2.0 authorization will become easier for European e-commerce merchants if it proves to be a path to compliance with a provision of PSD2, the revised Payment Services Directive.

Brexit seems more likely than ever, as the U.K.'s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, has committed to meeting the October 31 deadline for a deal to leave the EU. But despite the lingering uncertainty over how that will happen, Mastercard is not abandoning its bullish stance on Europe.

Payconiq has built an omnichannel, multicountry payment platform that uses a mobile payment app to leverage existing bank infrastructure in order to make payments in-store and online payments as well as to send P2P payments.

The timing of the settlement serves as a warning to other companies of the risks they face in an increasingly data-focused economy.

Merchants outside of China who have the QR code technology to accept Alipay and WeChat Pay are part of a growing trend to serve Chinese tourists who are comfortable paying via their smartphones.