ACCEPTANCE & PROCESSING

• Square expands offline payments feature globally, irrespective of their location or hardware device.
• Apple’s offer to open up NFC payments to be approved by EU next month. The tap-and-go technology allows contactless payments for mobile wallets. The European Commission two years ago accused Apple of thwarting competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet by preventing rival mobile wallets app developers from accessing its tap-and-go technology. In January offered to let rivals access its NFC on its iPhones, iPads and other Apple mobile devices free of charge without having to use Apple Pay or Apple Wallet

BNPL

• Klarna partners with Uber to provide clients in the US, Germany, and Sweden with the possibility to pay with Klarna on Uber and Uber Eats.

CORPORATE ACTIVITY

• Stripe to unbundle its payments service from its broader suite of financial offerings. The company’s previous approach meant access to other services was contingent upon using Stripe’s payment solutions. Alongside this change, the company introduced several new Embedded Finance features and a new selection of AI tools.
• Swedish live video shopping provider Bambuser acquires Klarna’s virtual shopping solution, HERO, in a deal worth around EUR1.3 million.

CRYPTOASSETS/BLOCKCHAIN/DLT

• Stripe lets merchants accept stablecoins for online payments. Merchants will be able to accept stablecoin payments from this summer, although initially this will be restricted to Circle’s USDC on the Solana, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains.

DIGITAL, RETAIL & ‘Neo’ BANKING

• Juniper Research have found that global BaaS platform revenue generated from account/card issuing and transaction fees will grow by 158% to 2028; up from $36.4 billion this year. This expansion primarily comes from API deployment across eCommerce and freelance platforms, by connecting consumers to innovative financial tools, and so unlocking additional revenue streams for BaaS providers.

LITIGATION

• BaFin fines Commerzbank over AML regulation breach. The regulator has demanded Commerzbank pay a fine of EUR 1.45 million over AML regulation breaches.

OPEN BANKING & PSD2

• Visa launches open banking with Tink in the US. For the US launch, Visa has signed data access agreements with banks and fintechs on the merchant side, including Capital One, Fiserv, Jack Henry, Dwolla and Max rewards. 
• UK Finance publishes report to facilitate commercial Variable Recurring Payments. The report identifies key issues and processes that are needed to develop VRPs for commercial applications and sets out recommendations for how those issues can be addressed through contractual arrangements.