Latest global banking news

September 14, 2022 12:35 PM

In global news this week, Western Union buys a digital wallet maker in Brazil, DBS in Singapore embarks on a green metaverse project, the U.K.'s Wise launches a digital cross-border payments service, and more.

Here's what's happening around the world.

Western Union acquires Brazilian digital wallet

Money transfer company Western Union, which is preparing to launch a digital banking service in Latin America, has agreed to acquire Te Enviei, a Brazilian digital wallet. The wallet will enable consumers to store funds, secure transfers and pay bills through an app on their phones. Western Union characterized the acquisition as part of an effort to change its approach from a transactional business to a relationship-based approach with its customers, according to its press release. Western Union has also been automating its business for years as it looks to diversify beyond its traditional reliance on an international agent network.

Commonwealth Bank adopts national payment authorization feature

Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is the first large Australian bank to add PayTo transactions for its customers. Australia's New Payments Platform, a national faster payments system, recently launched PayTo, which allows merchants and businesses to initiate real-time payments from their customers' bank accounts. CBA customers will have the ability to manage one-off or recurring PayTo transactions within the CommBank App. That includes authorization, pausing or canceling payment agreements. CBA retail and business customers that have a CBA bank account are eligible for the service.

Singapore's DBS using the metaverse in green strategy

Asian Bank DBS and gaming site The Sandbox will collaborate on a metaverse project that will showcase the benefits of environmentally-sound and sustainable financial services. DBC, which is headquartered in Singapore, will use a plot of The Sandbox to build a virtual world called the DBC BetterWorld that will be accessible to green energy developers. All of the production in the metaverse will be carbon neutral. The metaverse refers to a combination of existing technology, such as augmented reality, blockchain and social media, to create a virtual environment. Banks and other financial institutions have been experimenting with the metaverse, working on products such as incentive marketing and donations.

Wise launches digital cross-border payment service

London-based fintech Wise has built an integration service called International Receive, which provides international payment support for smaller institutions that are not connected to SWIFT, the international payments messaging system. Wise is offering correspondence banking services to manage foreign exchange and other compliance tasks on behalf of the smaller institutions. Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise's roots are in remittances, though the company more recently has added access to data aggregator Plaid and partnered with Google to support international payments.

Mastercard expands 'buy button' footprint in U.K.

Mastercard is working with independent payment services provider Nochex to deploy click to pay, a feature that allows consumers to pay by clicking an icon or "buy button" when paying online, rather than entering card details. Nochex will offer click-to-pay to merchants via an application programming interface, reducing steps for integration. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover introduced click to pay in 2019, part of a long-term project to create a standardized payment method for online transactions.

Singapore opens ESG portal

The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Singapore Exchange have launched ESGenome, a disclosure site for companies to report environmental, social and governance data. Investors and financial institutions can also access the data for different organizations and compare companies. The growth of ESG as a corporate strategy has created challenges in accessing data, particularly for comparison purposes, according to the MAS.

U.K. fintech investment eases, payments tech remains strong

Shortly after reporting that Canadian fintech investment declined in 2022, KPMG has issued a similar report on the U.K., where fintech investment in the first half of 2022 was $9.6 billion, down from $27.8 billion in the first half of 2021. KPMG attributed the decline to turbulent public markets, supply-chain disruptions and inflation. KPMG noted that the record-high levels of 2021 were an outlier and current fintech investments in most global markets are similar to those seen in the late 2010s, and that payments remain an attractive sector for investments. Globally, KPMG reported more than $43 billion of investments in payments fintechs in the first half of 2022, compared to $60 billion for all of 2021.

European firms test cross-border payments system

A group of banks and technology companies are piloting a payment network that combines digital identity management and processing across borders. The firms at launch are from Denmark, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Latvia and Norway, and are using Nobid, which is an existing electronic identity project that's active in Nordic countries. The group's goal is to produce a workable model that supports federated identity and processing protocols in different countries in multiple currencies, reports Finextra, a European technology wire service. The network will use existing payment infrastructure to manage account-to-account transfers, real-time settlement and payment acceptance in stores and online.