HIGHLIGHTS

Apple brings Tap to Pay on iPhone to eight more European countries including, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Luxemburg and Malta.

Stripe announces new functionalities at Stripe Tour London including Orchestration, Workflows, Managed Payments, Stripe Terminal on third party hardware, Stablecoins, use of Stripe balance to pay suppliers, networked onboarding, and many more.

‘Remote purchase’ fraud in UK surges as customers are tricked into disclosing passcodes. Banks say every day 7,000 incidents take place where scammers get people to disclose unique set of numbers for online logins.

In other news…

BNPL

Klarna doubles losses in first quarter as IPO remains on hold. Klarna reports its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totalled $99 million, significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago.

CRYPTOASSETS/BLOCKCHAIN/DLT

Worldpay partners BVNK for stablecoin payouts for clients in US and Europe.

DIGITAL, RETAIL & ‘Neo’ BANKING

ACI Worldwide launches ACI Connetic, a centralised, cloud-native platform. It unifies account-to-account and card payments with AI fraud prevention. This hub simplifies access to multiple payment rails like SWIFT and SEPA Instant, enabling banks to move away from siloed systems for faster, more cost-effective, and secure transactions.

FRAUD

Adidas says customer data stolen in cyber attack. Customer data mainly consists of the contact information of people who had been in touch with its help desk. Adidas said passwords and credit card and other payment data were not compromised.

TCS launches internal inquiry into Marks & Spencer cybersecurity breach. Internal investigation was initiated after the retailer’s CEO Stuart Machin’s asserted that the incident was due to ‘human error’.

REGULATION (EU)

Serbia becomes part of SEPA This move, part of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, integrates Serbia further into the EU’s single market.

European banks face significant costs adapting to mandatory 24/7 SEPA Instant Payments by October 2025. 47% anticipate millions in lost interest due to liquidity demands. Challenges include managing liquidity outside TARGET2 hours and increased fraud/sanctions screening, though 82% now see benefits outweighing costs.