The top payments stories you missed in July 2025
This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.
Catch up on Finextra's most-read Payments stories from last month.
Australian banks launch nationwide Confirmation of Payee scheme
Confirmation of Payee (CoP) has officially arrived in Australia, with Australian banks having started the roll-out of the nationwide scheme early in July. Even though Australia is one of the only countries where scam losses were reducing, banks have invested $100 million in the name-matching technology to further drive down losses.
Bank of England mulls shelving of digital pound
The BofE is allegedly willing to step back from the digital pound if private businesses continue to roll out new electronic-payment technologies. According to sources from Bloomberg, staff believe the gains from moving ahead with the launch have diminished, and have instead been privately urging the industry to accelerate payment innovations that could result in similar benefits.
The Finextra news desk writes: 'The Bank's current thinking is in stark contrast to that taken by the European Central Bank, which is accelerating work on a digital euro to keep up with the 'ambitious pace' set by EU leaders. The project's urgency increases in the face of geopolitical challenges, including an increasingly hostile United States under Donald Trump.'
PayPal unveils integration with domestic wallets across the world
PayPal has announced multiple global partnerships to integrate many of the world's largest digital wallets and payment systems in a single platform. Named Paypal World, the new initiative aims to connect almost two billion users globally and is designed to transform the way people send money in-store online, as well as with AI agents across borders. Launch partners, apart from PayPal, include Venmo, Mercado Pago, NPCI International Payments Limited (UPI), and Tenpay Global.
PayPal unveils 'Pay with Crypto' feature
It has been a busy month at PayPal. The company also announced a new service, called Pay with Crypto, to enable US businesses to accept payments in over 100 cryptocurrencies. The service, which is expected to become available within weeks, will let customers pay with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as stablecoins including USDC. They will also be able to use wallets such as Coinbase and MetaMask. The service is designed to simplify cross-border commerce for merchants by allowing payments in crypto to automatically convert to fiat or stablecoin, and also help cut transaction fees by up to 90% when compared to credit cards.
$17 million taken in TikTok ATM scam
Earlier in July, a fault in a youth job programme card scheme allowed $17 million to be withdrawn and lost across New York City. The programme had issued around 30,000 cards to 14-to 24-year-olds who could not be paid via direct deposit, and were only designed to give users access to that week's earnings. However, a fault allowed users to withdraw as much as $40,000 per ATM. As the fault went viral on social media, some users even sold their cards for $1,000.
Mastercard unveils A2A Protect in the UK
As account-to-account (A2A) payment fraud has soared to £592 million in the UK last year, Mastercard has rolled out a new service to help banks protect consumers from A2A payment fraud and resolve disputes. A2A Protect will initially focus on the most pressing concerns, such as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud. The service also includes a uniform procedure for banks to resolve disputes and recover funds, across multiple use cases. Future phases will, among other features, include processes for recovering funds across a broader range of scenarios.
Bailey and Reeves clash over Revolut banking licence - FT
In July 2024, Revolut finally won its hard-fought-for UK banking license. The approval triggered a 'mobilisation' stage while building out its controls and infrastructure, which was expected to end after 12 months. However, in July 2025, the approval anniversary came and went without an update. The Financial Times reports that efforts to accelerate Revolut's authorisation as a fully-licenced bank failed over a clash between The Bank of England governor Andrew John Bailey and chancellor Rachel Reeves. The Treasury commented in the FT: 'The chancellor and the governor have a strong and productive relationship and the government fully supports the operational independence of the Bank of England.' The BoE and Revolut declined to comment.
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Australia's internet network signs Amazon satellite service
SYDNEY, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The Australian government-owned internet network hired Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab untested startup satellite service to provide connectivity to people who cannot access its terrestrial network rather than Elon Musk's Starlink. From next year, low-Earth orbit satellites owned by Amazon's Project Kuiper will start replacing two Australian government-owned satellites due for decommissioning in 2032, NBN Co and Amazon said in a joint statement on Tuesday. The deal, for which financial terms were not disclosed, is designed to give high-speed internet to some 300,000 homes and businesses that NBN's terrestrial network does not reach. The thousands of low-Earth orbit satellites are connected to each other through optical links and communicate with antennas and other connection points on the ground. The deal represents a missed opportunity for Starlink, by far the world's biggest provider of such network services and which already has more than 250,000 customers in Australia, according to industry data. Australia's two biggest telecoms providers sell Starlink residential connection dishes and some government entities, including the Australian Electoral Commission, also have contracts with the company. Starlink, a unit of Musk's SpaceX rocket company, now has 8,000 fast-orbiting satellites since it began launching them in 2019, while Amazon's service has just 78 since its first launch in April. NBN and Amazon said Project Kuiper would ultimately have more than 3,200. NBN said the decision followed a rigorous procurement process, but did not say why it had chosen the Amazon service. Starlink was not immediately available for comment. "It is true that Amazon Kuiper has not launched services yet in Australia or globally, but they are reportedly pumping in about $15 billion into that programme," said Gavin Williams, chief development officer for regional and remote services at NBN. "We have every confidence that we've got a partner in Kuiper that will do what they say they're going to do," he added in an interview. Asked if Musk's ownership of Starlink played a part in the decision, Williams said only that NBN supplied critical infrastructure with regulatory and legal obligations and "technical, operational, and commercial imperatives that fall into that consideration were contemplated and ventilated through the procurement process."
Reuters
an hour ago
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Australia's TPG Telecom flags $1.9 billion payout to reset structure, cut debt
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Australia's TPG Telecom ( opens new tab said on Tuesday it would return A$3 billion ($1.94 billion) to shareholders as part of a broader plan to streamline its capital structure and reduce debt, sending its shares to a three-year high. TPG finalised its A$5.25 billion transaction with Macquarie-backed Vocus in July, generating net cash proceeds of A$4.7 billion. Shares in TPG rallied as much as 4.2% to their highest since August 2022. To cushion the impact of the capital return on its free float, TPG will offer minority shareholders the option to reinvest their proceeds into new company shares. The re-investment is expected to raise A$688 million, lifting TPG's free float from 23% to around 30% at current prices, and allowing minority holders to increase stakes. The capital raise could be value-accretive by reducing debt, but flags potential dilution concerns depending on how the new shares are structured, Bell Direct senior market analyst Grady Wulff said. TPG's top shareholders, including CK Hutchison, Vodafone, Washington H Soul Pattinson ( opens new tab, and the founding family, support the proposal and together hold around 77% of the register. The company added it would use A$1.7 billion from the Vocus proceeds and the A$688 million raised to repay up to A$2.4 billion in bank borrowings "We anticipate strong free cash flow generation over the coming years due to service revenue growth, operating cost efficiency, capital expenditure reductions, and lower borrowing costs," said CEO and managing director Iñaki Berroeta. However, TPG cut its annual pro-forma earnings forecast to a range of A$1.61 billion to A$1.66 billion, down from A$1.95 billion to A$2.03 billion, reflecting the absence of earnings from the divested assets. Intensifying competition and new players are putting downward pressure on margins, and TPG's revised outlook highlights the broader challenges all telecom providers are now facing, added Wulff. ($1 = 1.5451 Australian dollars)
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Iveco coordinated closely with Italian government on Tata, Leonardo deals, says source
MILAN, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Iveco ( opens new tab coordinated closely with the Italian government on its deals to sell its truck business to Tata Motors and its defence unit to Leonardo, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Monday. India's Tata Motors ( opens new tab last week agreed to buy Iveco in a deal valuing it at 3.8 billion euros, while the Italian truck and bus maker separately agreed to sell its IDV defence business to Leonardo ( opens new tab, giving it an enterprise value of 1.7 billion euros. The government's preliminary review of the deals, before they were officially announced, may indicate Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's administration will not set heavy conditions on the deals. Iveco declined to comment on Monday. The Italian government was not immediately available for comment. Presenting the deals last week, Iveco CEO Olof Persson said Tata Motors had committed to maintaining Iveco's "industrial footprint and employee communities", as well as its corporate identity. Iveco's headquarters will remain in Turin, Italy, after the acquisition is completed, the two groups also said last week. Iveco last year made 74% of its revenues in Europe and 11% in South America, whereas Tata currently has no European or South American truck or bus making operations. That absence of overlap in those regions will enable the Indian manufacturer to scale up the Iveco business, the source said, including through investments needed to expand the smallest European truckmaker and to meet industry safety and environmental regulations. The source said Tata Motors increased the total headcount in two previous large M&A deals it made, the 2004 acquisition of Daewoo Commercial Vehicle in South Korea and the 2008 purchase of Jaguar Land Rover in the United Kingdom. The Italian government is expected to put the two sales under scrutiny as part of so-called golden power legislation, which allows it to intervene on deals involving companies deemed of national interest. When the two deals were announced last Wednesday, officials from Meloni's administration said the government supported "quality foreign investment" but would closely follow the deals to ensure the protection of jobs, strategic resources and the wider production chain. Iveco employs around 36,000 people, including 14,000 in Italy. Exor, the holding company of Italy's Agnelli family, currently owns a 27.1% controlling stake in Iveco, with 43.1% of voting rights.
