EMEA

French mobile payments app Lydia has raised €40 million (about $45 million) in a Series B fundraising round led by Tencent Holdings, owner of WeChat Pay.

Fintech bank and payment services provider LHV is now providing real-time payments in the U.K. through the country's Faster Payments scheme, allowing it to handle U.K. currency in addition to euro payments in the Single Euro Payment Area through SEPA Instant.

The effort is part of a push by interim Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn to cut costs at Europe’s largest lender by assets.

From Malta to Belgium, the past three years have served as something of a shopping market between payments-based fintechs seeking alternative jurisdictions through which they could still be licensed within the EU, and investment agencies hoping for a piece of their business.

So far this year, Lloyds and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks have had payment failures in the U.K. And in the U.S., a software glitch at parking technology vendor Parkeon halted digital payments at meters in New York and other cities.

With the cost of processing business transactions remaining stubbornly high, a number of U.K. fintechs are working to facilitate open banking payments, a method which could soon enable consumers and businesses to make faster payments at a lower cost.

Paul Murphy took full responsibility for a recent spike in charge-offs at the Houston company. His challenge in 2020 is keeping credit issues in check.

The Tennessee company said Rob Garcia will be in charge of building a commercial banking team in the city.

The Mississippi company will also top $4 billion in assets when it buys Southwest Georgia Financial.

The Federal Reserve’s Lael Brainard this week tossed fresh regulatory pressure on Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, comments that come as central banks around the world work on digital currencies to counter the social network’s cryptocurrency project.