“First, Airwallex has built all the infrastructure for the business banking services that it provides directly to businesses with a focus on small and medium enterprise customers. Second, it has packaged up that infrastructure into a set of APIs that a variety of other companies use to provide financial services directly to their customers without needing to build those services themselves — the so-called “embedded finance” approach.”

“The company said it will use the fresh funds for team expansion, product development and scaling distribution to serve more businesses. FloBiz will also focus on building additional technical capabilities within the organisation, as it prepares to venture into financial services soon.”

“Grailed, the curated menswear resale platform offering brands from Supreme to Saint Laurent, has secured $60 million in a new funding round led by larger sneaker resale rival Goat Group, alongside smaller investment from Groupe Artémis, the investment fund of Kering’s Pinault family and Marco Bizzarri, the Gucci CEO, who has invested personally.”

“Alexis Luedtke got her first “buy now, pay later” plan in 2019 after she was rejected for a credit card. She has used at least five more since to buy face cream, T-shirts and birthday gifts. Installment plans are back in style. PayPal Holdings Inc. last week said it was buying Japanese installment payment startup Paidy Inc., following Square Inc.’s $29 billion deal for Afterpay Ltd. Macy’s Inc. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. have added the option at checkout over the past year. Even Amazon.com Inc. is doing it .”

“Credit card heavyweights, which long showed little angst about buy now/pay later competitors, are starting to acknowledge the need to match the offers from those upstart firms. In recent days, a few major card issuers have either announced new BNPL offerings or signaled that they are closer to doing so. Their products are poised to rival short-term installment loans from fintechs like Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna, which market to millennials and Gen Z consumers, and tout their products as easier-to-understand alternatives to credit cards.”

“Treasury officials have identified what they believe are the most urgent risks posed by Tether and other stablecoins as they ready recommendations for stricter oversight of cryptocurrencies.  Ensuring investors can reliably move money in and out of tokens is a top concern for officials crafting a policy framework set to be released in the coming weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named because the work isn’t complete. They’re also worried that widespread, fire-sale runs on crypto assets could threaten financial stability and that certain stablecoins could scale up dangerously fast, the people said.”

“City governments nationwide are joining a trend to make more cash payment options available to consumers looking to pay their bills, with Chicago undertaking a significant expansion and New York installing new kiosks for the first time next month. Cities take in more income when consumers have additional ways to pay for parking tickets and taxes, while residents benefit from conveniently placed kiosks that don’t charge them fees and that have access to their data.”

“JPMorgan (JPM.N) is set to launch its big assault on British high street banks and online lenders from next week, with the launch of its long-planned digital retail bank Chase. The venture – JPMorgan’s first overseas retail bank – is set to launch its smartphone app initially offering current accounts on Tuesday, a JPMorgan spokesperson confirmed.”

“Curve, the fast-growing financial super app, is very proud to announce Curve Flex, a unique rival to Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). After receiving FCA approval on September 1st, Curve has quietly launched Curve Flex to simplify and unify credit. It offers customers the power to pay later for almost any purchase made at any merchant, from any card, up to a year ago. Curve Flex builds on Curve’s patented and trademarked Go Back in Time technology to let customers convert almost any purchase made on any card linked to the Curve platform in the past 12-months into an instalment plan.”

“Building credit history can be difficult if you are a consumer that is having trouble getting access to credit in the first place. Enter TomoCredit , which has developed a credit card focused on building credit history for first-time borrowers. The San Francisco-based startup is announcing today that it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Kapor Capital and KB Investment Inc. (KBIC), a subsidiary of South Korea’s leading consumer bank.”

“Self Financial, a fintech company that aims to help consumers build credit and savings at the same time, announced today it has raised $50 million in Series E funding. Altos Ventures led the financing, which also included participation from Meritech Capital and Conductive Ventures and brings the Austin-based startup’s total raised to $127 million since its 2015 inception. The company, as many fintechs these days, aims to make building credit and savings more accessible, regardless of a person’s financial history. It requires no hard credit check to get started.”

“Just 12 months after a swathe of Tier 1 UK banks took equity stakes in Form3, the payments infrastructure group has raised a new $160m funding round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The round is prepping Form3 for international expansion, primarily focusing on the US, where Form3 says it is already in “advanced conversations” with several American banks.”

“Seeking to improve the customer experience for insurance-claim payments, Metromile Enterprise Solutions LLC, an automated insurance-claims payments platform, is partnering with payment processor Dwolla Inc. to enable digital payments. With the Dwolla integration, insurance companies using Metromile’s Streamline platform can send claims payments in real time using The Clearing House Payment Co.’s RTP Network. Other methods through Dwolla include the automated clearing house network and push-to-debit disbursements. In April, Dwolla released an application programming interface to enable real-time payments through the RTP network.”

“Square , the globally recognized software, payments, and hardware solution for all types of businesses, today announces the launch of its Early Access Program in Spain. The service, which is now available for beta-testing in Spain, offers exclusive access to an integrated set of omnichannel tools for businesses and freelancers to sell and deliver their services more easily, both in-store and online.”

“Global technical body EMVCo has published new resources to help card issuers and merchants to optimise the EMV® 3-D Secure (EMV 3DS) authentication experience for online shoppers when EMV Payment Tokens are in use, enhancing the fraud-prevention benefits that EMV 3DS provides. EMV Payment Tokens are used across the payments ecosystem to increase the security of card-based transactions by replacing the primary account number (PAN) with a unique alternative value. Industry feedback identified an opportunity to improve the EMV 3DS authentication process by making Payment Tokens and related data available as part of the 3DS Authentication Request to improve issuer decision making and the consumer experience.”

“Today, J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM) announced it went live with credit card payments processing for Alibaba.com, the B2B business unit of Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA). Working together with Alipay, a leading digital life services platform operated by Ant Group, J.P. Morgan Merchant Services, the #1 payments processing provider in the U.S. according to Nilson, now powers payments made by U.S. credit cards on Alibaba.com.”

“Square Inc. , the mobile payments company, has joined with other tech companies in a cross-licensing platform to reduce patent lawsuits over cryptocurrency and promote the growth of digital currencies. The company says it is joining the Open Invention Network where members pledge royalty-free access to patents for open source technology.”

“There’s a new entrant in Southeast Asia’s growing list of unicorns. Jakarta-based Xendit , best known for its digital payment infrastructure but also focused on other financial products, announced today it has raised $150 million in Series C funding, bumping its valuation to $1 billion.”

“US consumer spending is still outpacing pre-pandemic levels in a sign that shoppers are shrugging off concerns around the Delta variant to continue fuelling the economic recovery, according to bank executives. At JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, debit and credit card spending is still tracking 18 to 19 per cent higher than 2019 levels, consumer and community banking head Marianne Lake told investors at an industry event on Tuesday.”

“TrueLayer is tackling the issue of slow merchant withdrawals and refunds with the launch of a new Open Banking-based instant payouts feature. TrueLayer’s PayOuts combines Open Banking verification and fast payment rails to overcome the arduous process of conducting due diligence on customer profiles before issuing payments. The product works by matching the name provided by the customer with what’s on file at their bank to confirm the details are correct.”

“Kenyan mobile money platform, M-pesa said it has hit the 50 million active users mark in Africa to cement its position as Africa’s largest mobile money platform. This was made known by the M-Pesa Africa managing director, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit in a statement to commemorate the milestone.”

“Amazon’s palm-scanning technology, Amazon One, has always been about more than just fast payments. Really, it’s about Amazon controlling and verifying identities, with the company hoping to deploy its service in public spaces like offices and stadiums. Today, Amazon announced the tech’s first launch in an entertainment venue as part of a partnership with ticketing firm AXS. Amazon One will be available to validate entry into Colorado’s famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, an open-air venue built into a rocky outcrop. It’s the first time the technology has been deployed outside Amazon and Whole Food stores, and Amazon says it expects the tech will be added “to more AXS ticketed venues in the future.””

“French citizens will soon be able to verify their identity when accessing a range of secure online services — including opening a bank account, filing a tax return and paying for their health insurance — by scanning their updated Carte Nationale d’Identité Électronique (CNIE) eID card with their NFC-enabled smartphone. The French government is introducing the functionality in order to enable holders of the new CNIE card to tap it on their mobile device in response to an authentication request made by any of 900 service providers connected to the FranceConnect platform.”

“More than three quarters of cashless transactions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are now contactless, a remarkable turnaround from pre-pandemic figures of just 40%. The Dach region, until recently heavily reliant on cash and invoicing, has experienced a dramatic transformation in contactless adoption over the last two years.In June 2019, overall contactless adoption in the region was at just 40%, according to figures from payment processor Nets. The average contactless rate is now 77% in Germany, 82% in Austria and 80% in Switzerland.”

“Chargezoom , a leading platform for managing billing and payments, today announces the closure of their heavily oversubscribed Seed Round. The investment is led by Okapi Venture Capital and joined by SaaS Ventures.”

“Zelis, a leading payments company in healthcare, announced today it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sapphire Digital (“Sapphire”), the healthcare industry’s leading platform for provider selection, patient access, price transparency, and digital consumer navigation. More than 100 million people rely on Sapphire to help them price, select and access care with confidence. As part of the transaction, the Sapphire leadership team will join Zelis to help lead the combined company’s healthcare consumer solutions business.”

“The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (“Goldman Sachs”) and GreenSky, Inc. (“GreenSky”; NASDAQ: GSKY) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Goldman Sachs will acquire GreenSky, the largest fintech platform for home improvement consumer loan originations, in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $2.24 billion. GreenSky’s differentiated lending capabilities and market-leading merchant and consumer ecosystem will help accelerate the efforts of Goldman Sachs to create the consumer banking platform of the future, help tens of millions of customers take control of their financial lives and drive higher, more durable returns.”

“Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced the upcoming availability of Payment Services for Adobe Commerce , the industry’s leading end-to-end commerce application for B2B, D2C and hybrid use cases. By integrating Payment Services to their digital storefronts, Adobe merchants of all sizes will soon have access to a robust, secure, and integrated payment solution that can easily be managed from their Adobe Commerce Admin, instead of having to do the work of integrating with third-party payment providers.”

“WEX (NYSE: WEX), a leading financial technology service provider, today announced it has been awarded and entered into the state-wide fleet card contract with the State of Minnesota through the NASPO ValuePoint Master Agreement. WEX is proud to expand its extensive government contract portfolio and continue working with state-wide fleets.NASPO ValuePoint is the cooperative purchasing arm of the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO).”

“i2c Inc. , a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, today announced its certification with Mexican payments network, Prosa , providing local banks and fintechs greater choice in issuing and processing American Express, Mastercard and Visa programs while also signaling its continued growth and investment in the LAC region.”

“Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has helped to digitally-enable an estimated 16 million small and micro businesses (SMBs) worldwide, or just over 30% of the multi-year goal it set in 2020 to digitize 50 million SMBs. Since the start of the pandemic, Visa has launched community-based programs from Dubai to D.C., to help more small businesses accept digital payments and gain greater access to the digital economy. The necessity for SMBs to continue to digitally accelerate is underscored by the 5th edition of the Visa Back to Business global study released today, which found that 68% of consumers say COVID-19 has permanently changed how they will pay.”

“Silicon Valley Bank , the bank of the world’s most innovative companies and their investors, and Plaid , a data network powering the digital financial ecosystem, today announced a partnership to allow clients to instantly authenticate bank account information with Plaid and securely generate payments via a tokenized payment solution. SVB is the first bank to provide ACH account token integration with Plaid.”

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Tuesday announced a project to link their respective fast payment systems — Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and PayNow which will facilitate instant low cost cross border fund transfer. The linkage is targeted to be operationalised by July 2022. “The UPI-PayNow linkage will enable users of each of the two fast payment systems to make instant, low-cost fund transfers on a reciprocal basis without a need to get onboarded onto the other payment system,” the RBI said in a statement.”

“Paytm, a pioneer in mobile payments in India and one of the country’s best-known startups, set out years ago to build an ubiquitous digital-finance ecosystem much like Ant Group Co.’s Alipay in China. Now, as Paytm’s owner nears a $2.2 billion listing that will see it beat Ant to the public markets , the company isn’t the dominant player it wanted to become and faces mounting challenges in an increasingly crowded Indian payments market. It has already been overtaken in one key area by deep-pocketed rivals including Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Walmart Inc. -backed Indian startup PhonePe.”

“Credit card issuer Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) will test a “buy now, pay later” product this year as competition for consumer loans builds from financial technology firms providing merchants with easy ways to offer cheap financing for purchases. “We will be testing a beta version of our own ‘buy now, pay later’ product,” Capital One Chief Executive Richard Fairbank said at a Barclays investor conference on Monday. Fairbank said Capital One’s test will include point-of-sale loans for customers at a “select set of merchants” with which it already has relationships.”

“Melio , a leading B2B payments platform for small businesses, today announced it has raised an additional $250 million, tripling the company’s valuation to $4 billion since January 2021. The capital raised will accelerate the company’s expansion through partnerships with leading financial institutions, software providers, and marketplaces interested in enabling B2B payments for their customers.”

“DBS has launched real-time online tracking for cross-border collections for businesses in India in partnership with SWIFT Global Payments Innovation (gpi). DBS is the first bank in India and Asia-Pacific to offer this service to clients, which is expected to benefit close to 4000 corporate and SME clients in India, with numbers expected to grow further. The new DBS SWIFT gpi incoming tracking will arm corporate treasures with better cash forecasting by receiving the end-to-end tracking information, which was not possible a few years ago.”

“Akoya LLC announced today that TD Bank, U.S. has joined the Akoya Data Access Network . The Bank will build on its original investment in Akoya to enable fintechs, data aggregators, and other data recipients to request application programming interface (API)-based access to TD Bank’s U.S. customer data through Akoya.”

“LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today released the findings of its latest Cybercrime Report, which covers the first half of 2021. This edition of the biannual report reveals that bot attack volumes grew 41% year over year with human-initiated attacks falling 29%. The report confirms earlier trend patterns showing the financial services industry and media businesses bear the brunt of increased automated bot network attacks.”