Venture funding

Many companies in the payments industry see B-to-B transactions as ripe for modernization, and Mastercard is no exception. Its recent participation in a $300 million funding round in AvidXchange enables a new approach to this market.

Merchant acquirers are racing to sell "integrated payments," or a one-stop shop for transaction processing and myriad other services that stores can tie to the point of sale. But small to medium sized businesses are not often the targets for these efforts.

Long Game uses behavioral economics and the mass popularity of lottery games to redirect lottery spending toward savings.

Diebold Nixdorf, on a mission to expand its omnichannel banking and retail offerings, has formed a strategic partnership with Kony Inc., a maker of white-label mobile applications.

Suni Harford is off to UBS, and Shaza Andersen is selling the bank she founded. Also, you should hear how venture capitalists talk about female entrepreneurs.

Paytm, India’s largest digital payments startup, raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. in the largest funding round from a single investor for the country’s technology sector.

Investors have poured $15 million into Nymi to help the Toronto startup commercialize its wearable authentication technology.

JPMorgan Chase, which already made a $10 million investment in mobile payments and loyalty provider LevelUp, renewed its interest in a just-completed $50 million round of funding.

The roughly $2 million investment comes as banks keep joining (and in some cases, leaving) various distributed ledger projects as they try to pick the winners in a young field.

Sweeping new data-sharing rules require a substantial IT revamp at large financial institutions.