Asia

Three of Australia’s largest banks—Wespac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Australia Bank—have joined forces for a mobile wallet joint venture called Beem, with person-to-person payments as the first use case.

A rising tide of Chinese dealmaking in the U.S. is spurring Congress to propose tighter measures to restrict investments that are increasingly viewed as a threat to America’s national security.

India’s push to build a broad biometrics-based consumer identity database—now 1 billion strong—has been a boon to Paytm and other mobile payments providers leveraging Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the open-architecture structure supported by India’s government.

Apple Inc. is exploring ways to bring Apple Pay to India, according to reports.

Mastercard will invest $750 million in India in the next four to five years by continuing to acquire companies there, CEO Ajay Banga said this week.

Singapore and Thailand are in discussions about connecting their national digital payment systems to forge an unprecedented regional alliance, as officials step up efforts to curb the use of cash.

In service now for a decade in Africa, India and parts of Europe, M-Pesa is expanding its telco-driven mobile money service to include tap-and-go payments through wristbands, stickers or cards.

Competition between card networks, tech titans Facebook and Google, Chinese fintech proxies Paytm and Hike, and M-Pesa will be fierce, and offer signs how other large emerging payments markets may evolve, writes Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

Meituan Dianping, China’s largest group-buying and restaurant reviews service, is said to be close to finalizing a deal to raise at least $3 billion from investors including Capital Group, according to people familiar with the matter.

New policies in China and Hong Kong may be a way to clear the path for those issuers that wish to launch legally compliant and responsible token sales, writes Joshua Ashley Klayman, an attorney at Morrison Foerster.