U.K.

London-based TransferWise's business model has been to undercut traditional banks’ foreign transfer fees, and the company's marketing has long emphasized its role as a plucky rival to banks — going so far as to invoke a comparison to Robin Hood. But the company's offering can also benefit the banks that see value in making peace with an upstart.

Western companies desperately want a chunk of China's vast domestic consumer payments market, though they may find themselves feeling lucky to be left out.

As contactless cards continue their momentum in the U.K., new use cases are popping up for the tap-and-go technology.

With increasing numbers of alternative providers gaining licenses to provide payment services aimed specifically at businesses, Beck predicts the pressure on the banks to offer faster and cheaper services is going to substantially increase.

Mastercard is working with Starling Bank as its strategic partner to settle funds sent within the U.K. through its Mastercard Send service.

Visa's management faces an unwelcome choice: It can share more information about internal shortcomings or mistakes that caused payments to shut off temporarily, or get summoned to Parliament for a politically-infused public questioning.

What advantages will this new system bring to the U.K. payments market? The U.K. has traditionally struggled to find ways to break the major banks’ monopoly on payments.

The City of London, in collaboration with iZettle, is introducing the world’s first contactless card payment scheme for street performers. And as PayPal completes its purchase of iZettle, it's likely that this technology will spread to the U.S.

Payment gateway provider Pelican Group has launched PelicanPay, a new unit of the company, to focus on providing European-wide Payment Services Directive connectivity, payments and financial crime compliance services.

Belgian security researcher Xavier Mertens has discovered a piece of a banking malware campaign that appears to target customers of various U.K. banks.

Two major Canadian banks, Bank of Montreal and Simplii Financial, have become victims of hacks that affected some 50,000 and 40,000 customers respectively. Neither bank decided to pay the ransom by the hackers' May 28 deadline.

The authentication software and hardware provider is shifting its focus to identity verification and account onboarding, another sign that the newest generation of bank customers is not interested in coming into a branch to set up an account.

Hoot Credit Union in Bolton, England is celebrating having made its 10,000^th loan to members recently.

Several U.K. businesses have shifted their stance on credit card acceptance in the wake of a new EU law that became effective Jan. 13 — with some providers putting an end to their credit card acceptance altogether.

Blockchain's potential for revolutionizing the world’s payment systems has captured the imagination in recent years, and last month Santander became the U.K.'s first bank to use the technology to create a new international payments service.

Call it mutual respect. Bankers from mutually owned British building societies and similarly structured U.S. thrifts recently gathered in New England to address common challenges and share ideas about staying relevant at a time of rapid change in financial services. Here are the takeaways from their meetings.

Despite Canada's high penetration of contactless POS terminals and consumer affinity for the technology, the country has lagged behind nations such as the U.K. and Singapore in contactless payments. That is set to change as Canada's transit schemes launch contactless open-payment systems.

The Supreme Court has sided with states in a dispute over sports gambling, a double victory for payment processors, which can use largely existing tools to serve an entirely new market.

Money launderers seem to be ramping up their use of a favorite strategy to clean their illegal funds — paying a small fee to a bank account holder to simply receive and send money transfers. And these so-called money mules are starting young.

Each year, 50,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the U.K. are forced under due to late payments. This is the net result of a culture where many large companies regularly make their suppliers wait far beyond agreed terms, before processing payment.