EMEA

NatWest has started a three-month testing period of a payment card using biometric fingerprint for authorization with 200 customers, saying it is the first such card issued by a U.K. bank.

Silicon Valley, New York, London and several of China’s largest cities are the world’s leading fintech hubs, but many other locales are gunning for their crown.

The British startup OakNorth sees U.S. community and regional banks as good prospects for its lending technology.

CEO Kessell Stelling said he thinks about Synovus' depressed stock price daily, even though his team is ahead of schedule cutting costs from a deal that closed in January.

The cold, hard truth of bank mergers is that rivals often steal top producers and convince customers the bigger bank won’t care about them anymore. The CEOs of the merging banks explain their retention efforts.

Tens of millions of dollars of M&A costs and a decline in mortgage activity offset higher loan income in the first quarter at the two banks, which also offered a timeline for their rebranding and shareholder votes.

Stripe has updated its products and made an acquisition to prep for new security standards it says will impact more than 300 million people, potentially giving Stripe the same kind of influence over European merchant technology that it enjoys in the U.S.

Facebook has informed users of its P2P Messenger money transfer option in the U.K. and France that the service will no longer be available as of June 15.

Two months after Mastercard lawyers urged an English appeals court to follow the lead of antitrust judges that had tossed out a multi-billion pound class action lawsuit from U.K. consumers over credit card charges, that appeals court has ruled against the credit card giant.

Allison Dukes says she will not be joining the combined company because she wants to remain in Atlanta, where she is involved with several civic and philanthropic organizations. The merged company will be headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.