Investment products

Billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong and Shanghai to bankroll its expansion in financial services and bolster its lead as China’s largest online payments platform.

Stripe is expanding its digital payment technology into new industries, and is also welcoming a series of notable executives with backgrounds that are mostly outside merchant technology. But they also have experience with much larger companies, a necessary skill as Stripe tries to grow out of its status as fintech upstart.

A public listing would improve Affirm’s competitive position against other point of sale credit providers, which have made recent deals to cement their scale among global merchants.

Fintechs are facing unique challenges in the pandemic. There might be a resurgence in funding on the horizon, but startups are looking to see what they can do now to weather the storm.

Securities laws, in spite of their shortcomings, exist for very good reasons: to regulate the fair exchange of units of ownership, to protect individuals from fraud or exploitation and to identify bad actors and hold them accountable.

As India’s first billion-dollar share sale in more than two years and the only credit card firm in the nation to go public, SBI Cards and Payment Services Ltd.’s float may exceed the $1.4 billion target. The question is by how much in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

Better-than-expected trading results also helped to boost net income.

States are just beginning to regulate cryptocurrency as a credit collateral for lenders. More can be done.

Glint has launched a U.S. version of its European gold-based debit Mastercard and app that creates an alternative currency for long-term savings as well as for use in spending on everyday transactions.

As Facebook's Libra takes shape, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says he is "not too concerned" about the impact on central banks.