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House Republicans form panel to shape crypto policy
House Republicans have created a panel to oversee crypto policy, including rules.
Apple Pay illegally profited by walling off contactless payments, lawsuit alleges
Credit unions and banks are accusing Apple of anti-competitive behavior.
PayPal's credit card will offer up to three percent cashback
Like Apple Card, the PayPal Cashback Mastercard has no annual fee.
Apple buys UK-based open banking startup Credit Kudos
The deal could be a precursor to Apple Card's arrival in Europe.
You can now use PayPal to send money to users in Ukraine
The payment platform is temporarily waiving transaction fees for Ukraine customers.
Robinhood opens cryptocurrency wallet to beta testers
The company expects to make the feature available to everyone later in the year.
Robinhood will start testing crypto wallets next month
Robinhood is finally preparing to test cryptocurrency wallets.
PayPal acquires buy now, pay later provider Paidy
PayPal is continuing its push into buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services with the acquisition of Japanese company Paidy for 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion).
PayPal may offer a stock-trading platform in the US
PayPal is “exploring” the idea of allowing its users to trade individual stocks.
PayPal ups its weekly cryptocurrency buy limit to $100,000
PayPal is increasing its weekly limit on crypto purchasing to $100,000 and scrapping annual limits altogether.
El Salvador becomes the first country to approve Bitcoin as legal currency
El Salvador has voted to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
The Cash app's parent company is now running its own bank
Square Financial Services is bringing financing for Square sellers in-house.
Opera's new online shopping cashback service is built directly into its browser
Opera's fully integrated cashback service works with partner shopping sites including Nike and Asos.
Visa abandons $5.3 billion acquisition after DOJ objections
Visa has abandoned its $5.3 billion bid to acquire fintech startup Plaid.
Samsung's Pay Card will be a 'true digital wallet' for its UK phone owners
Samsung Pay Card will act like a digital wallet.
Visa acquires fintech startup used by Venmo, CoinBase for $5.3 billion
Visa just spent $5.3 billion to acquire Plaid, the fintech company with an API that enables services for Venmo and other banking apps. Plaid's software allows startups, like the mobile investing app Robinhood and the cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Gemini, to securely connect to users' bank accounts. According to Visa, one in four people with a US bank account have used Plaid's technology.
New York sues US treasury for allowing fintechs to become banks
New York is suing the US over a decision to permit US financial technology firms to apply for national bank charters, blasting it as "lawless" and "ill-conceived". Maria Vullo, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, filed the suit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in a Manhattan federal court.
Square's Cash app now supports direct deposits for paychecks
Square's Cash app now supports direct deposits for paychecks, which means it's one step closer to becoming a fully functional bank account, without actually being a bank account. Users just need to give their employer their account and routing number (found in Cash settings), and the app will notify them when a deposit hits their account. The funds are added to their regular Cash balance and can be spent via debit card, sent to a friend, put into another account or even used to buy bitcoin.
EU raids banks over attempts to block financial tech rivals
You'd think that governments were waging a war against financial technology given reports of crackdowns and tighter regulation, but the opposite is true in Europe. EU officials have confirmed that they recently raided the offices of bank authorities in multiple countries, including the Netherlands and Poland, to investigate antitrust "concerns" that banks are stifling tech-driven newcomers. The banking establishment is allegedly preventing fintech companies from accessing account info despite customers granting permission, pushing people back to conventional services.
HSBC trialling app that automates your savings
While all the major banks have pretty good online facilities, there's a whole breed of nimble startups using mobile apps and bank account data to create new, more personalised money management services. Hoping to learn some new tricks, HSBC announced today it has partnered with one of these fintech pups, Pariti, to launch a standalone iOS app geared towards "micro-savings." The SmartSave app, which you can link to any bank account HSBC or otherwise, will automatically transfer money into savings or investments accounts based on user-defined rules.
