Asia

Japanese credit card brand JCB is working with Viva Wallet to build its merchant base in Europe as part of its ongoing expansion to new global markets.

Visa and Mastercard are driving digital transactions by financially empowering women in emerging markets who are unbanked but manage their families’ spending. The card networks are particularly targeting women in gig economy jobs and women-owned businesses.

"If you gathered the U.S.-based senior counsels of the major Chinese banks operating in the United States," said Joseph Loffredo, assistant general manager and chief financial officer at the New York branch of China Merchants Bank, "you'd find one outlier, a lady about half the age of most of the others."

With Wirecard's value tumbling since a Financial Times report two months ago alleging an accounting scandal in its Asian operations — and a followup Wednesday reporting that half of its revenue comes from "three opaque partner companies" — the German payments processor received a lift from a €900 million ($1 billion U.S.) investment from Japan's SoftBank.

As threats from nimble fintechs and global e-commerce companies abound, Visa’s turning to open development tools to place itself in the middle of the innovation, rather than making a solitary counterplay itself.

SnapPay has grown rapidly in its role as an acquirer and payments gateway for Chinese mobile payment acceptance in North America, and it is ready to show merchants the next step.

Singapore-based OCBC Bank and Rapyd have formed a partnership that will leverage Singapore’s local P2P service plus Rapyd’s Checkout solution to power instant payments for local e-commerce purchases.

Hong Kong's DBS Bank is integrating into the country's new Faster Payments System to allow small businesses to accept QR code instant payments.

PayU is expanding its umbrella of payment companies in developing markets in a $70 million deal to buy Wibmo, a Cupertino, Calif.-based digital payments company that integrates with banks in 20 countries for payment authentication and security.

Social media commerce platform provider Jumper.ai is helping Amazon merchants complete online transactions without the buyer being redirected to the Amazon online marketplace.