Mastercard

Michael Miebach was already a major cog in Mastercard’s digital transformation and dealmaking, a path that will take him to the company’s top job when current president and CEO Ajay Banga transitions to executive chairman at the end of the year.

Payments firm announces leadership changes; the bank will place restrictions on fossil fuel lending while adding to sustainable projects.

Mastercard will expand its European Technology Hub in Dublin over the next three to five years, as the card network plans to create more than 1,500 tech jobs at the site.

London mobile point of sale fintech SumUp has launched a prepaid business Mastercard to its line of small business products.

Mastercard Inc. won approval to set up a bank card clearing business in China, gaining access to a $27 trillion payments market as part of the nation’s financial opening, though more regulatory steps will be required.

Higher rates are looming for transactions on e-commerce sites, while merchants in certain services categories, such as real estate and education, will see fees decline, according to a document Visa sent to banks.

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.

The bank raised its return-on-equity goals, based mostly on cost cuts and its core trading business; the Fed did raise the rate it pays on bank reserves.

The card networks' single "click to pay" button — an implementation of Secure Remote Commerce — is drawing some negative attention from merchant groups and independent networks that see it as a way to steal volume from alternative payment providers.

Progress in the trade war is welcome news for Mastercard’s ambitions in China, though the coronavirus jeopardizes the rosy outlook.

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

The payments industry is a hotbed of innovation, and many of its larger players are eager to claim patents on new developments.

The city would join San Francisco and Philadelphia among cities that prohibit stores and restaurants from only accepting electronic payments.

Even in mature markets, consumers may not feel very connected to their payment cards. This is making issuers more reliant on selling data-driven experiences over simple transaction processing.

Marqeta has been certified as a European card processor with Mastercard to help digital banks issue cards more quickly, signing Twisto as the first customer of the collaboration.

The fintech community was both surprised and energized by recent news that Visa has agreed to acquire Plaid, one of the nation’s largest fintech platforms for financial data analytics.

The acquisition will vastly expand Visa's platform, giving it nearly Amazon-like influence.

Mastercard is partnering with issuer processor EML and technology startup CleverCards to allow any business to send digital Mastercard payment cards directly to an employee’s or customer’s mobile wallet by SMS/text, email or any messaging app such as WhatsApp.

The purchase price is double the fintech's valuation in a 2018 funding round.

Mastercard has appointed Raj Seshadri as president of its data and services organization, succeeding Kevin Stanton, who starts a new role as chief transformation officer.