EMEA

Facebook Inc. intends to drive a global expansion of mobile payments on WhatsApp from London, accelerating its efforts to make money off the popular messaging service.

Tandem Bank has approval from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance as its aims to become the state's first new bank since the financial crisis.

Community banks in the state have struggled to attract the funds to meet surging loan demand, but that could change now that a new law has made it easier for them to accept government deposits.

British bank NatWest will launch a merchant acquiring service to attract small and midsize businesses in the U.K. and other countries.

It just got harder for banks in Georgia to enforce noncompete agreements in employee contracts. For employees of two merging banks, BB&T and SunTrust, the timing couldn’t be better.

Barclays has been highly active and aggressive in payments innovation on its home turf, giving it insight into which of its projects could find footing as it expands in the U.S.

The two banks’ CEOs used a public hearing to argue their merger will be a boon for underserved markets. But other speakers warned that bank consolidation hurts communities.

Royal Bank of Scotland's top banker will leave the state-backed lender within a year, in an expected move that potentially paves the way for a senior female executive to take his role.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ended talks on a historic tie-up, throwing the future of the lenders into question after a series of failed turnaround plans.

With Wirecard's value tumbling since a Financial Times report two months ago alleging an accounting scandal in its Asian operations — and a followup Wednesday reporting that half of its revenue comes from "three opaque partner companies" — the German payments processor received a lift from a €900 million ($1 billion U.S.) investment from Japan's SoftBank.