U.K.

Goodbox has raised £1 million (about $1.3 million) in capital, mostly from individual investors using the crowdfunding platform Seedrs following a 2017 investment from tennis star Andy Murray.

The U.K.-based fintech says that a recent crowdfunding campaign shows demand for its product, even though the amount it raised is well below funds obtained from VCs.

Vocalink beat out four other competing bids to secure a 10-year contract to provide real-time switching and settlements for U.K. ATM operator Link Scheme.

Even the homeless are getting on board with contactless payments, through a new U.K. wide initiative between Swedish payments company iZettle and the Big Issue Foundation, which enables homeless people to become street vendors by selling its its Big Issue magazines.

Rapid-fire acquisitions, partnerships and investments in the likes of Uber, Lyft and Grab are transforming these ride-sharing providers. And much of this activity is built on their ability to handle payments seamlessly as part of the experience.

Cash is not dead, but the burdens of ensuring access threaten to break long-standing ecosystems that sustain traditional payments.

U.K. fintech Revolut will use Bottomline Technologies' Universal Aggregator to manage a software-based real-time payments button.

The challenge with cash is its nature makes it hard to transition away from it. On the other end of the scale, digital-only businesses may never accept cash, meaning they may always exclude the cash-based consumer.

Amid the fallout from the catastrophic collapse of Carillion last year, the U.K. government has been getting tough on late payments.

Digital financial services provider Revolut is expanding a partnership with Visa that will allow it to nearly double its global footprint by adding 24 new markets, including the U.S.