Latest global banking news

July 13, 2022 1:21 PM

In global news this week, buy now/pay later companies Zip and Sezzle call off their merger, BBVA sets a higher target for women in management, ABN Amro debuts a digital wallet for gig workers, and more.

Here's what's happening around the world.

Zip, Sezzle call off merger

Australian buy now/pay later fintech Zip has terminated its merger with Sezzle, a Minneapolis-based BNPL lender, citing changing market conditions. The move comes as valuations for other large BNPL firms like Klarna have sharply declined. Zip and Sezzle in February announced plans for Zip to acquire Sezzle for $356 million, combining the companies’ customer base to fast-track growth in the U.S. Zip will pay Sezzle an $11 million deal-termination fee, according to a July 12 press release. —Kate Fitzgerald

Spain's BBVA sets goal to bridge gender gap

Bilbao, Spain-based BBVA has established a target of 35% of management positions to be held by women by 2024, which would be an increase from 31.4% at the end of 2021. The bank is in the midst of a series of initiatives that are geared toward increasing the number of women in positions of responsibility. Fifty-three percent of the bank's employees are women, though the percentage decreases when approaching management jobs. BBVA is additionally trying to improve its ability to identify more diverse talent, requiring at least half of the final candidates for positions be women. In the past year, 52% of promotions at the bank went to women. BBVA has set an additional goal of having women make up 40% of the seats on its board of directors. —John Adams

ABN Amro tests wallet for freelancers

Amsterdam-based ABN Amro is collaborating with French gig worker fintech Younited to pilot the Payday Freelancer Wallet, which allows contract workers to automatically access their revenue in their bank accounts when their assignments are confirmed by the client, rather than submitting an invoice. The model is designed to give the freelancer more control than the traditional method in which the freelancer's client pays the invoice. The wallet also allows gig economy workers to track past earnings, and is part of a broader effort by the bank to distribute business' payments to freelancers throughout the month, rather than concentrating transactions at the end of each month. —John Adams

Santander plans awards ceremony in the metaverse

The Spanish bank Santander will name the winners of a blockchain developer challenge during a virtual event on the metaverse platform Decentraland, which has supported other financial services events such as Mastercard's Pride Month program. About 400 firms from 11 countries submitted projects covering security, decentralized finance and other Web3 financial products. The bank will choose three startup winners, who will receive about $12,000, and three winning scaleups, which will receive about $36,000. The firms will also get access to advice and training through Santander's startup community. —John Adams

Canada's debit network improves redundancy following Rogers outage

Interac is adding a network provider in an attempt to ensure service following last week's outage at Rogers Communications, which lasted about 19 hours and disrupted banking systems, flights and emergency calls. Interac, which operates Canada's debit network and enables transfers based on mobile numbers, was also shut down during the outage and is hiring a backup provider in addition to Rogers; the network is reportedly not replacing Rogers. Interac did not return a request for comment on the move, which Reuters first reported. Rogers blamed the outage on a network system failure that followed a maintenance update. —John Adams

Goldman lends MercadoLibre $233 million for credit growth

Goldman Sachs has agreed to loan $233 million to Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre’s fintech arm as the firm plans on expanding its credit offering in two key markets. MercadoPago, as the financial-tech business is known, will use $106 million to boost its credit portfolio aimed at individuals and smaller businesses in Brazil, while $127 million is earmarked for Mexico, according to a statement Monday. Last November, Citigroup loaned the firm $375 million. The Buenos Aires-based company started offering credit services in 2016 and saw its credit portfolio grow to over $2.4 billion in the first quarter, up from about $1.7 billion by the end of last year. —Vinícius Andrade, Bloomberg News