Payments

By acquiring the Latvian data-sharing specialist, the London-based payment company hopes to beat fintech rivals in the race to power account-to-account transactions.

Some banks in Europe, Latin America and Asia are issuing contactless cards that use fingerprints instead of PINs to authenticate users, but observers think the technology's U.S. prospects are limited.

Klarna Bank, which advertises itself as a way to spread the cost of the latest brands and smartphones, is shelling out loans for milk and gas with cash-strapped customers looking for ways to cover basic necessities.

Fears of a recession abound, but payment and other financial technology companies that can address pressing business challenges will draw funding, according to venture capital investors.

Rogers Communications is experiencing a widespread network failure in its wireless and internet services, causing payment systems and automated teller machines at banks to go down.

In a speech at the Bank of England, the vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board gave her strongest endorsement to date for the benefits of a central bank digital currency. 

The nation's financial institutions are teaming up with government agencies to fight identity fraud.

U.S. senators led by Democrats Bob Menendez, Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed told seven of the country’s biggest banks they must do more for consumers defrauded by scammers on Zelle, the person-to-person payments network the firms jointly own.

Meta's Facebook has discontinued a digital wallet that was originally meant to help people use the Diem stablecoin. But its Meta Pay platform is more conventional — and thus more likely to succeed where Novi failed.

The startup FuturePay is working with Cross River Bank to offer an instant line of revolving credit in a manner similar to how BNPL lenders operate.

Authentic Brands Group, which owns and licenses brands like Forever 21, has settled its lawsuit against Bolt Financial. The agreement ends months of legal wrangling between the troubled payments startup and its largest active customer, which had claimed that Bolt’s technology was faulty. 

In global news this week, the European Central Bank weighs in on fractured crypto regs, China's digital wallets come to Qatar, Amazon brings buy now/pay later to Egypt, and more.

The finance app Revolut is teaming up with Stripe to support payments in the U.K. and Europe.

Meta's wallet, which was designed to support the Diem cryptocurrency, will close in September. It's the latest setback for Meta's goal to build a broader payments system.

Banks and payment companies may have to decide whether to proactively protect or prohibit transactions for abortion treatment. Any action — or inaction — can be seen as taking a position on the highly divisive issue.

More banks, fintechs and organizations are launching projects or implementing plans to speed transaction processing.

Klarna Bank is in talks to raise new equity at a valuation as low as $6 billion, a fraction of the $45.6 billion it commanded last summer as it became Europe’s most valuable startup, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

With alternative payment methods one app or click away, a short service disruption can lead to a permanent loss of trust.

The retail industry, which wants the Federal Reserve to lower a decade-old price cap, has been complaining that higher prices for consumers mean heftier interchange fees. But banks are pointing out that the $10 billion-asset threshold below which financial institutions are exempt from the cap hasn’t been adjusted for inflation.

The buy now/pay later startup Zilch has raised a further $50 million, upping the total raise for its Series C fundraising to $160 million as it plans bolster U.S. expansion plans.