Italian Banking Group Sella Launches Biometric Payment Card

Indian banks and retailers have reportedly begun accepting contactless payments made with digital rupees. The move is part of the Reserve Bank of India’s retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project, TechCrunch reported. Reliance Retail is the first merchant to take part in the pilot, the report said,...

Mastercard and Network International have partnered to create a public transport payment system in Jordan. In a Wednesday (Feb. 7) press release, Mastercard announced that it has teamed up with the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and Network International to roll out a new system that will enable seamless digital payments across the municipality’s public transport network.

Digital platforms are continuing to revolutionize the remittances market, and Western Union is taking notice. The 172-year-old financial services company told investors during its fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday (Feb. 7) that it sees remittance volumes remaining resilient in 2023, and growing in line with a macro backdrop that it expects to be similar to last year’s.

Enigma and Alloy have partnered to help financial institutions (FIs) better understand small businesses. The collaboration adds Enigma’s intelligence about the financial health and identity of U.S. businesses to Alloy’s onboarding and transaction monitoring platform for banks and FinTechs, the companies said in a Tuesday (Feb. 7) press release.

Continental nearshoring is driving a broad shift in both global trade and friction-free B2B payments. Supply-chain disruptions, prolonged “zero COVID” shutdowns in China, and soaring shipping rates, alongside widespread geopolitical uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are combining to fuel a nearshoring trend as companies look to strategically diversify their operations in the hopes of avoiding overreliance on a single market or one that is hemispheres away.

The old-fashioned check looms as a 2023 flashpoint in the battle vs. the fraudsters. Criminals steal checks from mailboxes. Enter the search term “check washing” into any search engine and headlines have massed over the past several weeks, citing businesses and banks that have been scammed. In September,...

Open banking can help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in more ways than one. In fact, from payment gateways to automatic invoicing software, a variety of Europe-based startups are using the technology to better cater to the needs of the SMB market. Payments Automation. Managing and tracking payments can be...

In an area once dominated by banks, EMEA FinTechs are now major SMB lenders. Across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, a generation of FinTech lenders are shaking up the way small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) access finance. And if recent events are anything to go by, demand for their services has surged.

Bill payment in the U.S. needs an overhaul as PYMNTS research shows the majority of bill-paying consumers are encountering friction in the process. More than half experienced at least one key pain point in the past 90 days, such as a lack of payment options or security concerns. These and...

New York FinTech Fierce has raised $10 million for what it calls an “all-in-one” financial app. The company, co-founded by former Gemini Chief Technology Officer Rob Cornish, announced the app and the financing Wednesday (Feb. 8), saying the funding would help it expand its team and acquire more customers.

Tomorrow’s connected ecosystem will leverage machine-native wallets, enabling authenticated machine-to-machine transactions across various commercial settings. That’s the vision of Sterling Pratz, CEO at leading payment solution for vehicles and fleets Car IQ, who tells PYMNTS’ CEO Karen Webster that he and his investors see machine payments, and vehicles in particular, as the future.

Mobily has expanded its new mobile payment service, Mobily Pay. The Saudi Arabian telecom service provider has expanded Mobily Pay services in the county via a partnership with Swedish technology company Ericsson, according to a Monday (Feb. 6) press release. Ericsson will “continuously evolve and enhance” the Mobily Pay platform...

The U.K.’s payments regulator wants banks to reimburse victims of authorized push payment (APP) fraud. In light of a 40% increase in APP fraud in 2021, regulators in the country have been considering how to grant victims a right to compensation from their bank. Accordingly, in September, the U.K.’s...

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance will temporarily suspend U.S. dollar bank transfers beginning Wednesday (Feb. 8). The company announced the move in a Monday (Feb. 6) post on Twitter, adding that only a small proportion of its users will be affected by this, that the firm is working to restart the service “as soon as possible” and that all other methods of buying and selling crypto on the exchange are unaffected.

PhonePe is now enabling cross-border Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments in select countries. With this support for UPI international payments, PhonePe’s Indian users can pay foreign merchants instantly when traveling abroad, the Indian eCommerce payment system and digital wallet company said in a Tuesday (Feb. 7) post on LinkedIn.

Many businesses have gone through several stages of technology spending since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, retailers and manufacturers focused on investing in the digital shifts that would keep them in business. As 2022 drew to a close and economic uncertainty became more of a worry, many began boosting efficiency and cutting costs.

GoCardless has launched a solution that enables third-party payment providers to allow bank-to-bank payments. The new GoCardless Embed is a white-label product that integrates the firm’s global bank payment network into payment providers’ platforms while enabling them to keep control of the customer experience, GoCardless said in a Wednesday (Feb. 8) press release.

Microsoft will launch a new cloud data center region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In a statement published on Monday (Feb. 7), Microsoft said it is investing in infrastructure in the country “in response to growing customer demand for cloud services and data residency in Saudi Arabia from global enterprises, local businesses, and civilian public sector organizations.”

B2B payments platform OnlineCheckWriter.com has added integrations with several accounting platforms. With these payment integrations, users of the platforms can import checks, bills and invoices and pay them, thereby avoiding manual entries, OnlineCheckWriter.com said in a Tuesday (Feb. 7) press release. The new integrations include Bill.com, Create Check from PDF,...

Mazepay has raised 4 million euros (about $4.3 million) to expand its corporate spend management solution across Europe. The procurement and B2B payments platform is already used by customers in 21 countries on five continents, Mazepay said in a Wednesday (Feb. 8) press release. “With the increased uncertainty that many...