Investment

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.

Until significant steps are taken toward creating a seamless and intuitive experience, blockchain will fall short of its goals, as it is unable to communicate its value.

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.

Mastercard is expanding its Girls4Tech education outreach program with new partnerships, and tightening the focus on subjects broadly in demand in the payments industry.

Norwegian digital payments provider MeaWallet is offering a new payment tokenization solution that delivers Mastercard, Visa and American Express tokenization services through a single connection.

Cathy Bessant, Bank of America’s chief operations and technology officer, offers her takeaways from the first meeting of the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence. She also shares some challenges banks are facing with cyberattacks and data encryption.

Credit unions have measures in place to assist members hit by fraud but many smaller institutions are challenged when it comes to an effective response.

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank plans to launch a pilot in 2020 of a blockchain-based digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar. This marks the first time that a central bank will have issued digital legal tender using the blockchain.

Banks say easing rules on people with some criminal records will diversify the applicant pool; deal with Synchrony may be near.

The SEC and other regulators are taking a closer look at ICOs and mergers involving cryptocurrencies and distributed ledgers, which requires careful diligence for payment companies and dealmakers, according to Will Turner, a partner in the blockchain and cryptocurrency practice at Steptoe & Johnson.