Asia

The day after Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc.’s mid-year sale, a company drone took off from a playground in the city of Xi’an to deliver one of the orders. The six-rotor craft is one of about 40 JD.com designed to cut delivery times.

China UnionPay has qualified FIME’s personalization validation tool (PVT), marking the Chinese payment brand’s first certification of an overseas lab for testing its secure chip products.

Alipay is deepening its reach to Chinese consumers in the U.S. through a partnership with 99 Ranch Market, a 50-store chain of supermarkets specializing in Asian products and food.

Geoswift, an international payments provider, has launched an inbound P2P service with the goal of simplifying the complex regulatory processes involved in sending money to China.

South Asian remittance firm InstaReM has launched its cross-border P2P and B2B digital money transfer service in the U.K. and the EU as it prepares for an IPO in 2021. It also expects to become profitable by then.

The Australian state of Queensland has selected Cubic Corp. of San Diego to develop a mass-transit ticketing system that will support contactless payments and real-time rider account information for public transportation in the region surrounding Brisbane.

Paytm, one of India’s most widely used mobile wallets, has added TV and games in an effort to keep users' eyes on its app as long as possible.

Western companies desperately want a chunk of China's vast domestic consumer payments market, though they may find themselves feeling lucky to be left out.

Visa has moved to cut its debit transaction fees in India by 95%, bringing it more in line with RuPay, India’s state-run domestic debit scheme.

A fintech that has grabbed a sizable chunk of the Australian digital payments market has made some quick merchant scores for its American launch.