Both consumers and businesses, as technology has developed, have begun to rely on global payment services for a variety of uses. As the process becomes more and more digitised, fintech firms are focussed on better speeds and transparency whilst remaining just as, if not more, secure.

The Royal Bank of Canada is backing a new incubator programme for fintech and cybersecurity startups.

In uncertain times, Lunar Bank is targeting beginner investors with a straightforward, stripped-down stock-trading platform in collaboration with fellow Danish bank Saxo.

Mastercard is to create over 1500 jobs in Dublin over the next three-to-five years, with the opening of a new tech campus in Leopardstown.

JP Morgan has struck a deal to buy cloud-native payments technology firm Renovite Technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Payments giant Worldpay has struck a deal to buy AI-native enterprise fraud prevention platform Ravelin. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The European Central Bank is warning banks that their management of outsourcing risk must improve, with a stringent focus on the processing of personal data.

The UK’s Financial Ombudsman has fielded a 35% surge in customer complaints about requests for reimbursement over scam thefts being denied by Revolut.

Visa is introducing a ‘trusted agent protocol’ to protect merchants from malicious bots when transacting with AI agents.

At EBAday 2024 in Lisbon, Finextra’s own Niamh Curran moderated a lunchtime session titled ‘Rising Stars’, with Luca Kotton, platform owner at Investec Bank; John Salter, chief customer officer at ClearBank; Jenny Winther, head of payment schemes at Handelsbanken; and Phoebe Zhou, head of emerging payments, GPS Europe at HSBC, discussing success and industry newcomers.

NatWest has launched a digital carbon planner to help UK businesses manage their future fuel and operational costs, and grow greener.

AI-powered financial crime detection specialist ThetaRay has acquired screening company Screena. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Climate-tech startup Greenspark has raised £1 million in a seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures.

Stripe is teaming up with Alphabet, Meta, Shopify and McKinsey to commit $925 million to spur the nascent carbon removal sector.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) has ordered the local unit of crypto giant Binance to appoint an external auditor over “serious concerns” about money laundering controls.