The United States Department of Justice is filing suit against Visa for its acquisition of Plaid, which the DoJ is arguing is an illegal play to achieve monopoly. According a complaint filed by the DoJ on Thursday: "Visa seeks to buy Plaid — as its CEO said — as an 'insurance policy' to neutralize a 'threat to our important US debit business.' By acquiring Plaid, Visa would eliminate a nascent competitive threat that would likely result in substantial savings and more innovative online debit services for merchants and consumers." Modern life involves a bevy of different accounts, profiles, data, etc. …

Senior executives at global payments giant PayPal have revealed further details about its plans to aggressively push into the crypto sector next year during the firm’s Q3 2020 earnings call, including plans to support central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. “Clearly the world is rapidly moving from physical to digital,” said PayPal CEO, Dan Shulman, emphasizing the accelerated rate of change within the payments and financial services sectors. Citing discussions with central banks, regulators, and crypto industry leaders, Shulman asserted: “There is no question that digital currencies are going to be rising in importance, having increasing functionality, and increasing prominence.” …

A crypto payments network is celebrating its third anniversary — and has bold ambitions to give the unbanked and those living in developing countries greater access to digital assets in the next 12 months. Since launching in 2017, Electroneum has launched an intuitive app that allows people in 140 countries to purchase mobile phone top-ups using cryptocurrencies. The company was also the first to introduce electricity top-ups that could be bought with digital assets. Back in 2019, the digital payments firm even launched a smartphone capable of mining crypto. At the time, Electroneum said users could then rely on these …

There has been significant excitement in the industry since PayPal last week announced its intention to enter the cryptocurrency market. The rollout of its new crypto services — enabling both crypto payments and direct, in-app purchases of crypto — has been officially set for early 2021. Yet on Oct. 28, the co-founder and CEO of crypto payments firm Circle, Jeremy Allaire, claimed to have used the PayPal app to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin (BTC), tweeting a screenshot of the apparent transaction. Bought $100 in BTC on @PayPal ! Great milestone for the market! pic.twitter.com/jsxAxTpGgK — Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) October …

Amid a global race toward central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, Cambodia officially launched a blockchain-based platform for digital money transactions called Bakong. "Bakong, a payment and money transfer service through banks or microfinance institutions, was established under the initiative of the National Bank of Cambodia," said an article from Dap-News on Oct. 28. The Asian country's central bank collaborated with a number of entities on the project. Bakong first secured involvement from Cambodian financial giant PRASAC in October 2019. In January 2020, Cambodia's central bank forecast the platform's launch, revealing the system as a closed circuit enterprise. "Bakong is …

The U.S. Department of Justice, or DoJ, recently publicized an investigation into Visa's ongoing acquisition of fintech company Plaid. "Today, the Department of Justice filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to enforce Bain & Company’s compliance with the department’s Civil Investigative Demand (CID)," the DoJ said in a public statement on Tuesday. Essentially, U.S. authorities have taken legal action to obtain information from Boston-based consulting giant Bain & Company on Visa's acquisition of Plaid. "On June 11, 2020, the division issued Bain a CID requiring the company to answer interrogatories and produce documentary …

The cryptocurrency industry welcomes another high-profile executive from traditional finance. Filomena Ruffa, a former vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa’s Latin America division, has joined Crypto.com to expand the company’s Latin American market. According to an Oct. 28 blog post, Ruffa will now be responsible for managing all operations and driving strategic business partnerships for Crypto.com in Latin America. The former Visa executive brings extensive work experience in the region as well as expertise from her top positions at payment firms like CardinalCommerce and SafetyPay. Crypto.com’s hire comes as the company records major new milestones. As reported …

The crypto world has been buzzing with excitement over the last couple of days, and rightfully so. Bitcoin (BTC) is currently hovering around the $13,000 mark, while Ether (ETH) has once again safely tread past the $400 threshold in spite of the KuCoin exchange hack and the unfortunate legal events that recently unfolded around BitMEX. That being said, this latest surge can largely be attributed to the decision of online payments processor PayPal to finally enter the crypto arena. Come 2021, PayPal will be allowing its customers to use a number of popular digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin …

Indian bank United Multistate Credit Co. Operative Society is planning to expand its banking services to cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency products. In collaboration with the crypto banking service provider Cashaa, United has established a joint venture dubbed UNICAS that aims to provide both online crypto banking services and walk-in services across its 34 physical branches in northern India. This move by United and Cashaa comes amid India’s uncertain crypto regulations. While the Supreme Court of India took down the crypto banking ban put in place by the Reserve Bank of India in March, most banks are still skeptical of providing services …

Toyota Systems, the IT arm of Toyota Motor Corporation, is collaborating with Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DeCurret to develop a branded Toyota digital currency, according to an official announcement on Oct. 26. The large-scale pilot will involve 2,500 employees at Toyota Systems. The platform will feature digital currency payments for benefits. According to the announcement, participating employees will be able to exchange the digital currency for benefits points or gifts from a catalog. Toyota Systems noted that the digital currency cannot be exchanged for Japanese yen. The new pilot uses DeCurret’s proprietary blockchain-based platform for issuing and managing digital currencies. The …

Bitcoin (BTC) price has again punched through the $13,000 mark after yesterday’s PayPal’s announcement sparked a powerful rally which drove the price to a new 2020 high. Currently sitting near $13,100, Bitcoin price has rallied nearly 10% since the announcement and BTC is now close to overtaking PayPal as the 21st biggest asset by market capitalization. PayPal’s crypto announcement comes two weeks after Square, another payments giant, announced its own foray into Bitcoin by investing roughly 1% of its assets into Bitcoin. According to Lanre Jonathan Ige, a researcher at 21Shares, the continuing trend of large sized investments will be …

PayPal (PYPL) reached $215.87 on Oct. 21, a few dollars past its previous all-time high of $212.38, set on Sept. 2, 2020, according to data from TradingView. This price action came shortly after the payments company announced that it would soon be including crypto assets on its platform. PayPal plans to integrate Bitcoin (BTC), Etheruem (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) offerings into its network. Opening the trading day at $206.20, PayPal quickly rose past its all-time high, but just barely — breaching the level by about $0.14. The asset subsequently fell lower before breaking the previous high with …