On Saturday, Visa and Mastercard announced that they had suspended network operations in Russia, which prevents cards issued in Russia from working abroad, and disables cards within Russia that were issued outside the country. Amex and PayPal have enacted similar measures.
Read MoreOn Monday, machine-learning solutions provider Stratyfy released UnBias, which helps financial institutions discover and undo bias in their systems. UnBias will be available as a standalone offering.
Read MoreIn an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday, the coffee chain’s executives said they would invest in expanding customer use of the Dutch Rewards app. Between 20% and 25% of rewards transactions include stored-value activity, according to the company’s CFO.
Read MoreIn a joint statement on Saturday, the U.S., U.K., E.U., and others announced that they would move to exclude “selected Russian banks” from SWIFT, the international payments system. The group of countries has also frozen assets belonging to Russia’s central bank in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read MoreVisa and Mastercard have blocked several Russian financial institutions from its payments systems. A run on Russian banks has begun.
Read MoreIn a joint statement on Saturday, the U.S., U.K., E.U., and others announced that they would move to exclude “selected Russian banks” from SWIFT, the international payments system. The group of countries has also frozen assets belonging to Russia’s central bank in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read MoreHours into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania encouraged “disengaging Russia from SWIFT,” the international payments system. Polish and UK officials echoed these calls as well.
Read MoreThrough a partnership with DiversiFi, Opera users on Android will be able to make cheap and instant crypto transactions within their mobile browser wallet. The Layer 2 swapping feature is 100 times cheaper than Ethereum Layer 1.
Read MoreIn a settlement with regulators, BlockFi agreed to register with the SEC and pay $100M in federal and state fines. It plans to launch an SEC-approved crypto interest-bearing security.
Read MoreFinancial regulators told banks that they must prove that the use of AI in loan applications does not discriminate against minorities. The move follows growing concerns over systeming racism in banking.
Read MoreThrough a partnership with fintech Buy It Mobility Networks Inc. (BIM), Discover will let merchants accept payments directly from consumers’ bank accounts. The feature is popular in Asian markets.
Read MoreLaunched yesterday, the feature lets users split bills evenly or in customized amounts through Facebook Pay. Facebook had publicly tested the feature for two months.
Read MoreMeta, the company formerly known as Facebook, reported disappointing fourth-quarter earnings as well as its first-ever decline in users. The company’s market capitalization tanked—sliding from $898.5B to $668.4B.
Read MoreIn the coming months, Apple will let iPhones accept credit cards without additional hardware. By turning its smartphones into POS systems, Apple is placing itself in direct competition with platforms like Square.
Read MoreExpense-management giant Expensify announced the launch of a card exclusively for CPAs and accounting firms.
Read MoreThe Financial Revolutionist is weekly newsletter and blog focused on the torrid pace of financial innovation. Today, thanks to the exponential rate of technological change, explosion in global trade and new regulations ushered in by the Great Financial Crisis, a new financial revolution is under way. In this battle, virtually every aspect of the greater financial services sector is subject to rigorous challenge. With the Financial Revolutionist, we are aspiring to create a boots-on-the-ground and highly opinionated assessment of important financial innovation developments in the past week.
