Payments

Digital services are gaining momentum, and traditional plastic cards are adding innovation to keep up after years of lagging, says FIME's Stéphanie El Rhomri.

The Facebook Inc. executive responsible for the embattled Libra cryptocurrency said he doesn’t fault companies that pulled out of the project, adding that he’s optimistic more organizations will sign on despite intense opposition from politicians who seem to fear financial innovation.

Even the homeless are getting on board with contactless payments, through a new U.K. wide initiative between Swedish payments company iZettle and the Big Issue Foundation, which enables homeless people to become street vendors by selling its its Big Issue magazines.

Its quarterly results show lower rates and emerging credit risks can be overcome. Whether most banks have all the same levers to pull is another matter.

CEO Michael Corbat said he “wouldn’t rule out” building branches to keep the momentum going.

American Express is adding a new dimension to its year-old partnership with PayPal by giving credit card customers more options for splitting a restaurant check and paying with loyalty points.

Wirecard AG fell the most since February in Frankfurt after a news report said it found repeated questionable accounting practices at the German payments firm.

Better-than-expected trading results also helped to boost net income.

Consumer banking is expected to offset the banks’ underperforming Wall Street units; the defections of Visa, Mastercard and Stripe threaten the cyrpto project’s viability before it starts.

South Africa’s payments industry wants to displace cash by enhancing its B2B-focused digital payment system to add instant low-value mobile P2P transactions.