Asia

Payments startup UTRUST is calling its first step in building a bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments platform with consumer protections a huge success, despite events working against its industry in China.

With a blanket ban on initial coin offerings, China has sidestepped an issue plaguing regulators worldwide: are such tokens securities?

Square Inc.'s addition of mobile chip-and-PIN in the U.K. and Australia markets is setting a precedent that some in the U.S. are loath to follow.

An Australian company is introducing its own version of bitcoin that will let homeowners and businesses sell excess energy generated from their rooftop solar panels to neighbors, without a middleman taking a cut.

Uber India this week announced its integration with Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the mobile payments technology developed by the government-sanctioned National Payments Corporation of India and two local banks, expanding mobile payments access to Uber riders and drivers.

Chinese tourists visiting Malaysia can now use their Alipay mobile wallet at all 242 Starbucks locations in the country.

E-commerce cross-border payments provider dLocal has updated its platform in India, enabling global e-merchants to accept and remit payments through all local methods and target the mobile consumer in the country.

Payments are getting more complex as business gets more global, adding channels and expanding ways to sell. Part of the strategy at the matchmaker crowdSPRING is to find a match of its own: AliExpress, Alibaba's online marketplace. It’s also considering a foray into virtual currency.

The simple act of moving money can have a big impact on any political movement, so banks and payment networks are often caught up in issues of national importance. Here are some recent instances where payments and politics came head-to-head.

China's Alipay already has broad global reach—its mobile wallet is accepted at more than 100,000 retail locations in 70 international markets—but in North America it’s just getting started.