U.K.

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.

Europe's PSD2 data-sharing standards are meant to foster cooperation in the market, but banks are getting more competitive as they seek to plug a revenue drain the new rules threaten.

Security is a top priority for financial institutions around the world. In the past few weeks, the U.K.’s TSB Bank has learned the hard way that availability is even more important. And when availability is an issue, security can’t be ignored.

Ulster Bank customers in the Republic of Ireland were left fuming as a second problem with the bank’s digital systems emerged only a week after the last mess, slowing down payments.

In one of the biggest fundraising rounds for a European fintech this year, Revolut Ltd., a U.K. startup that provides digital banking, received $250 million.

Contactless payments have become increasingly popular in the U.K. over the past couple of years due to the advantages they offer in terms of speed and ease of payment — but despite this, much of the U.K. public does not trust the format.

Companies that handle sensitive customer data have even more to worry about when making an acquisition. Not only do they have to be sure the acquired company has good security, but they can't let their guard down even after the acquisition closes.

The U.K.’s late payments culture and its resulting impact on suppliers has many worrying about whether their clients are the next Carillion, a U.K. construction giant whose collapse left approximately 30,000 SMEs with millions of pounds in unpaid invoices.

TransferWise is the first nonbank to become a member of the U.K.’s Faster Payments service (FPS), but with Brexit on the horizon, it has to make sure it is similarly invested in other markets.

Despite its popularity — or perhaps because of it — the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been at the front lines of many of the issues plaguing the cryptocurrency market. Its new e-money license in the U.K. could go a long way to easing some of those pains.

Mobile payments provider iZettle is adding an e-commerce platform that will expand merchants' capabilities to accept payments in-store and online.