U.K.

The country is lagging behind others when it comes to ensure that a consumer's financial data is available to third parties, and regulators need to step up.

The single-platform transfer is part of London-based Moneycorp's full integration of Commonwealth FX, a U.S.-based corporate international payments business it acquired at the start of the year —and part of a strategy to expand its U.S. market.

Divido, a London-based retail finance marketplace platform provider, has raised $15 million in a Series A capital round that includes American Express and Mastercard as investors.

The growth and dominant market share position of payment cards in U.K. retail sales is prompting a new pushback from retailers who are wary of rising network fees.

Swedish financial services provider Klarna Bank has boosted its U.K. foothold by agreeing to buy merchant bankers Close Brothers' retail financing portfolio.

The popularity of technology-driven international transactions are making their way to TransferWise's balance sheet.

Product diversification has boosted Revolut's valuation, and will make or break the company as it battles myriad competitors and a challenging geographic expansion.

While the card networks have greatly benefited by the global boom in e-commerce, they are confronted with the corresponding growth in digital advertising. This will increasingly lead them to seek out data-sharing deals like Mastercard's reported arrangement with Google, which could prove vital to the networks' future survival.

Counter to the trend — pioneered by Amazon — of launching cashierless technology in small stores to keep traffic under control, the U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has launched a trial of cashierless mobile shopping in one of its busy London stores, Clapham North Station Local.

A credit union in Swansea, Wales, has collapsed and will cost the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme nearly $647,000 to reimburse members' insured funds.

The DirectRemit service will enable the large British population in the UAE to send funds to family members' Lloyds Bank accounts in less than 60 seconds and to other U.K.-based banks within an hour.

A letter supposedly sent to U.K. bank customers warns that Barclays debit cards could explode. The letter then urges recipients to mail their cards, along with their PIN codes, to an address in Bangalore. But is this really happening?

Remitly’s moves are clearly in response to the growing competitive pressure being placed in a key U.S. outbound corridor.

The best thing a banker can do today is regard the U.K. as a real-world fintech laboratory, track developments closely and seek opportunities to capitalize on change, writes Naomi Bowman, managing director for Berkeley Research Group in London.

A more open approach to banking will bring major changes, with quality data on banking services and IT security now becoming a significant factor for consumers in selecting a provider.

Our phones are rapidly becoming a massive single point of failure in our digital lives.

Seven months have passed since the U.K.’s biggest banks were mandated to release open APIs for their customers’ account information under open banking and European Union PSD2 regulation. The process was completed by mid-April, but it fell short of creating a truly open system for data sharing.

To date, payments companies have feared common biometric methods such as fingerprint or iris scanning are unreliable and susceptible to hacking. However, there’s growing evidence that finger vein ID could prove more palatable.

Wyre has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the majority of its retail money transfer business to WorldFirst, giving the seller a chance to focus more on its cryptocurrency strategy.

Starling Bank, a U.K.-based digital-only bank, is among the latest European banks offering the benefit of its full banking license and its technology to companies that want to offer white-labeled banking products and debit or credit cards but don’t want to invest in a banking license or technology.