HIGHLIGHTS

Open Banking in the UK continues to grow with 13.3 million users in March 2025, a 40% rise year-on-year.

Europe’s largest retailers press European Commission to crack down on fees charged by Visa and Mastercard. They claim the fees have risen significantly without service improvements and lack transparency. Retailers want antitrust action, price controls, and regulatory scrutiny to address the dominant card schemes’ practices.

Adyen and JCB have launched JCB’s card-on-file tokenization. Adyen is the first to implement this globally. 

Square has launched Square Handheld a portable POS device for businesses. This sleek, durable device integrates payments and back-office operations into a single hub with industry-specific software modes. Its features include barcode scanning, a camera and full payment functionality, enhancing efficiency for restaurants and retailers.

In other news…

ACCEPTANCE & PROCESSING

Finnair have partnered with Amadeus to implement Amadeus Nevio, an online booking system that provides airlines with a solutions such as customer ux, orders, loyalty and fx, payments, etc. 

CORPORATE ACTIVITY

Digital bank Monzo is nearing a £6bn stock market listing and is working with Morgan Stanley on investor meetings. 

CROSS-BORDER 

Raiffeisen Bank has partnered with Wise to improve cross-border payments for their customers in Central and Eastern Europe. This collaboration will enable faster, more secure, transparent, and lower-cost international transfers directly from existing Raiffeisen accounts, enhancing customer experience and loyalty across the region.

CRYPTOASSETS

Coinbase has forecasted a hit of USD 180 million to USD 400 million from a cyberattack that breached the account data of its customers.

Mastercard partners with MoonPay to support stablecoin payments.

DIGITAL, RETAIL & ‘Neo’ BANKING

Paysafe and Fiserv strengthen partnership to drive SMB growth with enhanced capital access, fraud protection, and new digital wallet solution.

Monzo has launched a new feature allowing customers a 10-60 second window to undo mistaken bank transfers. This aims to address the nearly one in three Brits who have sent incorrect payments in the last year, with most realizing the error quickly. The tool also provides a pause to prevent fraudulent payments.

Lloyds Banking Group is partnering with Moneyhub to enhance transaction data using Moneyhub’s categorisation and their own GenAI. This collaboration aims to provide customers with real-time insights into their spending, leading to improved understanding and personalised digital banking experiences.

EMBEDDED FINANCE

myPOS partners with YouLend to provide lending solutions to myPOS customers. They can use the flexible repayment structure, where merchants can pay back by allocating a percentage of the funds received from card payments processed on myPOS.

ISSUING

Juuli partners with Visa and Stripe to launch the Juuli Visa Corporate Card This card offers physical and virtual options without fees or credit checks, streamlines expense tracking, and facilitates global payments, aiming to provide freelancers with corporate-level financial tools.

LITIGATION

JPMorgan is reportedly withdrawing its €900 million UK lawsuit against Greek fintech Viva Wallet but will continue its legal action in Greece. The dispute arose after JPMorgan acquired a 48.5% stake in 2022, with disagreements over a valuation clause leading to both companies filing lawsuits.

REALTIME/INSTANT PAYMENTS

iplicit has partnered with GoCardless to integrate Instant Bank Pay into its cloud accounting platform. This will enable iplicit’s UK mid-market customers to collect instant, one-off payments directly within the platform, reducing costs and speeding up invoice processing based on customer feedback.

OPEN BANKING & PSD 

Open Banking in the UK continues to grow with 13.3 million users in March 2025, a 40% rise year-on-year.