EMEA

It took less than six months to hammer out the biggest bank merger in more than a decade, and the price was one of the last things discussed, according to a new federal filing.

Barclays is partnering with digital rewards companies as part of its focus on investing in fintech and developing new business models. Its recent investment in Bink, a U.K.-based loyalty platform provider, marks the fourth company in this field that Barclays has partnered with.

Laybuy, a New Zealand-based payment processing firm that allows customers to pay for purchases in installments, is launching in the U.K.

While there is no formal mandate to pursue a merger and other options are still being considered, Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Christian Sewing is said to have given up his resistance to doing a deal this year.

Mastercard has dropped out of a recent bidding war with Visa to acquire Earthport, announcing it will instead buy Transfast, a different cross-border payments firm.

The Bank of England is requiring Visa to appoint PwC as an independent third party to review the card brand’s progress in implementing recommendations that followed a 2018 outage in Europe.

In a new, global twist to its ongoing Visa Everywhere competition, Visa is targeting female entrepreneurs who are looking for the right technology to solve their payment-related business problems.

Chinese mobile payment apps Alipay and WeChat Pay have made deep inroads into Western markets, and now UnionPay, China’s state-run card network, is catching up.

Barclays is preparing to merge its wearable mobile payments product BPay with its more popular Pingit app, after it struggled to attract users.

Revolut has caught the attention of U.K. regulators over money laundering compliance, a predicament that sheds light on issues faced by the entire digital financial services industry.