Asia

The pandemic and subsequent economic crisis have raised the stakes, since the government’s role in recovery and how stimulus is delivered — and policies impacting the goals of card and technology companies — will be largely determined by the philosophy of leadership.

Mercari Inc. wants to become the top provider of mobile payments in Japan even as its biggest rivals join forces, but that ambition is second to making the business profitable.

The Trump administration has barred the use of TikTok and WeChat inside the U.S., including a direct ban on WeChat Pay, setting up potential retaliation against U.S. companies that could interrupt international payment flows.

The controversial TikTok U.S. divestiture is inching toward a conclusion, but the battle over how and where data is collected has become a geopolitical barrier to international e-commerce growth that goes far beyond the Chinese video-sharing app.

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. is offering to sell a roughly $20 billion stake in its retail business to Amazon.com Inc., according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

An acquisition of the social app would bring with it users and data that can fuel Walmart, Microsoft or Oracle’s e-commerce and marketing battles against top competitors.

Afterpay has entered into an agreement with NBQ Corporate SLU to acquire Pagantis SAU and PMT Technology SLU for €50 million (about $59 million) to expand into France, Italy and Spain — a direct challenge to Klarna, one of the dominant European buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers.

Brisbane, Australia-based EML has partnered with the New Zealand buy now, pay later fintech Laybuy to leverage digital cards for in-store and online retail purchases.

The global digital currency race has heightened the threat to traditional monetary policy and the dollar’s dominance, enough for the Federal Reserve of Boston to make a concerted effort to keep pace.

A CBDC has the potential to be a real game changer for the payment industry if one condition is met: central bank digital currency has to be built as an open and shared infrastructure for the private sector to easily build on top of it, says ConsenSys' Matthieu Saint Olive.