Cross border payments

The U.S. fintech hopes its service will help encourage financial inclusion in Mexico, where 65 percent of the population is in the informal economy.

Visa has a deal to acquire the London-based bank payments provider Earthport for 198 million pounds ($250.6 million U.S.), pending approval from Earthport's shareholders.

The financial services and payments industries are aggressively trying to replace older systems with sleeker technology, but Swift has a separate goal in mind with the Global Payments Innovation system, or GPI.

On the surface, Ant Financial's reported discussions to acquire U.K.-based WorldFirst demonstrate a savvy business move to establish itself beyond the substantial market it controls in China. It also shows how far the Chinese payments giant is willing to go to resist the headwinds of U.S. policy.

The ubiquity of plastic payment cards makes it hard to imagine a future without them, but Japan’s JCB card network already envisions it.

Latin America’s fast-growing e-commerce industry is providing opportunities to provide payments gateways for cross-border transactions originating in countries that don't favor digital or credit card payments.

The Global Payments Innovation service now moves 55 percent of Swift's cross-border transactions as it nears its second anniversary.

Gifting is becoming more international and diverse, leading to a role for a a distributed ledger to streamline the user experience and bolster incentive marketing.

Fifteen major banks will test Swift's pre-validation service for Global Payments Innovation transactions, focusing on quickly identifying and eliminating errors or omissions in payment messages.

Kenya’s Family Bank Ltd. will collaborate with London fintech SimbaPay to launch a transfer service to China with WeChat.

New payments technology and rising demand for services are expanding the scope and reach of most of the world’s leading domestic payment schemes. But challenges from Visa and Mastercard loom large.

In the past few years the Chinese government has loosened restrictions on foreign travel, enabling millions of its citizenry to visit foreign lands. Along with a greater ability to travel is the enhanced prosperity Chinese consumers have reaped at home — and now bring with them on vacations to purchase foreign goods.

A former Lloyds Banking Group executive is joining financial messaging service provider Swift as its head of U.K., Ireland and Nordics operations.

Ripple Labs Inc., the blockchain startup whose digital money is often used as a proxy for other cryptocurrency payments, is gaining new customers because financial firms are seeking faster, more up-to-date technology than the Swift banking network, Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse said.

Kenyans using the M-Pesa wallet to make payments and receive funds can now send cross-border payments through a connection with Western Union's global platform.

The payments and financial services industry has enjoyed an unprecedented wave of invention, but the fruits of that labor are threatened by an ideologically driven political climate that complicates the evolution of global interoperable mobile-driven commerce.

LVMH Group, makers of Louis Vuitton handbags and other luxury goods, leans heavily on cross-border transactions to distribute its products. To streamline its processes, the company has partnered with FIS.

Western Union and Amazon are collaborating to bring the e-commerce giant's services to consumers who may not currently have access to online shopping or those who prefer not to make digital payments.

There are scenarios that complicate the B2B pricing process, before the customer even requests a quote. These issues vary across industries, growing even more complex once you bring subscription-based software solutions buyers into the picture, according to Mark Bartlett, chief experience officer of FPX.

American Express Co. said the U.S. Department of Justice and several regulators have sought information on its foreign-exchange international payments business.