Payments

Celebrities on the investor roster include Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber, Steve Aoki and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

A few months after cutting ties with its Diem stablecoin project, the company formerly known as Facebook is testing a virtual world marketplace.

In global news this week, Mastercard doubling headcount in Dublin; Ebanx in Brazil adds a cross-border option for merchants; NAB filters offensive content from mobile payments; and more.

The crypto payments startup Circle Internet Financial said it’s closer to submitting an application to operate as a bank in the U.S., pushing forward with a months-old plan even as regulators make it more difficult for crypto companies to secure this kind of license.

Bread Financial — formerly Alliance Data — offers its first general-purpose Amex credit card to expand consumer finance options following a couple of tumultuous years.

Vanguard Group will give some American Express credit card customers access to financial advice, a business the fund manager is working to build up.

"With ACH payments there's a latency in how they are processed; it can take two to five days. Things can happen," warns Silvana Hernandez, senior vice president of digital payments at Mastercard.

A community development financial institution in New York City says it's the first U.S. bank to launch a contactless payment ring. It's betting that novelty will be part of the draw.

People with a wealth of crypto holdings are loath to trigger a taxable event by cashing out. But they still represent a sizable market for the payments industry, according to the bank and fintech. "Demand for transacting in crypto is building, and we're preparing," said GreenBox CEO Fredi Nisan.

Each company has introduced its own program to give dealerships access to real-time digital transactions.