European Acceptance

• Checkout.com partners with Vinted.  The partnership claims to have improved Vinted’s payment performance and resulted in an improved digital experience for customers.
• Worldline and FreedomPay partner to offer travel and hospitality businesses in Europe an omni-channel payment solution, integrating FreedomPay’s gateways capabilities with Worldline’s acquiring and DCC services. The solution will support both card present and card not present and is planned to go live from mid-2025.

In Other News….

BNPL

• Klarna partners with JP Morgan Payments to offer its BNPL services to their merchant base. Through this partnership Klarna will join the JP Morgan Payments Partner Network.
• FIS and Affirm partner to offer integrated BNPL capabilities to debit issuing banking clients and their cardholders.
• DECTA has integrated with Klarna to provide businesses the opportunity to offer flexible payment options.

CORPORATE ACTIVITY

• Klarna targets US IPO in April with a valuation of $15bn.
• Paysafe is exploring potential sale.
• Commerzbank to cut 3900 jobs over the next two years as it strives to slash costs and drive profits in the face of takeover bid by Unicredit.

CRYPTOASSETS/BLOCKCHAIN/DLT

• A third of central banks delay CBDC timelines following the US digital dollar ban. Even if 75% of central banks still plan CBDCs, 31% have delayed timelines, citing legislative hurdles and the need for broader payment solutions.
• Bitpanda secures FCA approval for UK expansion

DIGITAL, RETAIL & ‘Neo’ BANKING

• Revolut launches in Ukraine with their unique Clear Sky debit card designed by a Ukrainian team to symbolise the hope for a clear and safe sky over the country.
• Revolut is expanding its instalments offer to Spain, Ireland and Poland, allowing users to split purchases over €50 into fixed instalments.   #

OPEN BANKING & PSD2

• GoCardless partners with Form3 for UK Bacs payment connectivity and support with scale-up of UK operations.

REGULATION (UK)

• UK Treasury Committee demanded nine banks to bring forward details of IT outages over the last two years following Barclays three-day outage in January. Barclays have also been asked to provide an initial estimate of compensation it expects to pay out as a result of the outage.