Venture funding

Europe's Payment Services Directive, or PSD2, has almost everything a technology vendor would want. It affects an entire continent, and it involves both sweeping new data requirements and a substantial IT revamp for large financial institutions.

Payments and financial services technology are still stuck in yesteryear, chained to paper and dangerously prone to fraud, according to Matt Streisfeld, a principal at Oak HC/FT.

Blockchain Capital wants to raise $10 million by issuing its own digital token, a method the firm says is the future for startups, VCs and everybody else.

The 2012 Jobs Act let regular Americans invest in startups, spawning a glut of crowdfunding sites offering real ownership stakes in return for cash, rather than the new smartwatches or electric skateboards available on pioneering platform Kickstarter.

Wearable payment devices are cutting edge, fast and diverse. But they are not a steady, predictable or popular consumer trend. Even so, investors see a rich opportunity to get involved in the market for wearables.

Artificial intelligence is steadily making its way through the payments and financial services world. The technology's usefulness for fraud detection is clear, but there are other areas where AI can have an impact.

With scammers steadily improving their techniques, CO-OP Financial Services is starting to offer artificial intelligence to police transactions initiated by online, mobile and other connected devices.

Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s investment in Chinese video streaming service Kuaishou values the startup at about $3 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Flipkart Online Services Pvt has completed a $1 billion fundraising and aims to raise as much as $1 billion more over the next few months, according to people familiar with the matter, giving India’s largest e-commerce company capital to battle back against rising competition.

The ICO fundraising model has already yielded more than $230 million for startups.