India

Competition between hundreds of national and global payment systems forces everybody to continually adapt, up their games, culling weaker and underperforming systems and inviting the search for better mouse traps, says Intrepid Ventures' Eric Grover.

Mastercard will financially back Indian merchant commerce platform Pine Labs' embrace of multi-channel installment financing as a payment option in addition to cards.

Projects in both countries are picking up steam and serving as an example to the rest of the world, says ACI Worldwide's Craig Ramsey.

In a move to increase the security of card transactions, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is requiring all advanced features such as contactless to be turned off for new and re-issued cards until the user opts-in.

Uber Technologies Inc. will sell Uber Eats in India to local rival Zomato in a $172 million deal, according to a person familiar with the transaction, underscoring the ride-hailing giant’s effort to cut back on loss-making operations.

Last week, Indian regulators ordered an antitrust probe of Walmart and Amazon while Jeff Bezos and other Amazon execs traveled to New Delhi to tout a $1 billion investment to digitize local businesses. The message is U.S. investment is welcome, as long as U.S.-driven data mining is kept at bay.

Paytm Payments Bank has issued over 3 million FASTags for the Indian national highway electronic toll system, making it the largest issuer in the country.

Paytm and Walmart are each offering credit in India to obtain a competitive advantage in an environment that's typically more welcoming than that of China.

The Bank of England fined Citi $57 million for failing to properly report capital and liquidity levels at its European investment bank and other global operations.

India’s digital payments pioneer Paytm announced new funding from existing shareholders like SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund and new investors, as competition in the country’s finance sector heats up.

Singapore OCBC Bank will use Google Pay to support P2P transactions starting early in 2020, following a similar path as India, where banks have increasingly embraced Google Pay for transfers.

Western Union has gone live with a service enabling real-time cross-border remittances to India harnessing Unified Payments Interface, the central bank’s payment rails.

South Africa’s payments industry wants to displace cash by enhancing its B2B-focused digital payment system to add instant low-value mobile P2P transactions.

Infosys has joined Visa B2B Connect, a four-month old Visa hub that cuts indirect processes and intermediaries out of global business transactions.

India has taken a hard line on cryptocurrency, but other blockchain payments innovation is thriving.

Long overshadowed by food delivery startups such as Uber Eats and on-demand delivery service players such as Postmates, delivering fuel to a consumer’s vehicle is a convenience service that is growing in the U.S. and other markets.

Russia and its BRICS partners are developing cross-border alternatives to U.S.-dominated payments systems such as Swift, driven by the rise in cross-border trade and a desire to find non-dollar alternatives to international payments systems vulnerable to sanctions by the U.S. government.

The system has made it easier for mobile wallets and other technology providers to enter India's payments market, and will push the next steps toward real-time payments and cash reduction, says Somya Patnaik, senior product manager at ACI Worldwide.

Indian consumers and businesses would be best served if New Delhi confined itself to discrete interventions to reduce structural barriers to payments competition, rather than imposing price controls, dispensing subsidies and promoting national favorites, says Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Samsung has reached an agreement with an online marketplace for financial products in India that will allow consumers to apply for credit cards and loans through the Samsung Pay app.