Klarna adds to payments menu; BofE gets heat on stablecoins | PaymentsSource

• Key insights: Klarna has added peer-to-peer transfers. 
• What’s at stake: Best known in the U.S. as a buy now/pay later lender, Klarna is diversifying its product mix following its IPO.  
• Forward look: The Swedish firm is expanding geographically and is trying to compete with established banks.

Swedish buy now/pay later provider Klarna has taken another step toward realizing its neobank aspirations with peer-to-peer payments in Europe. 

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The service launched in 13 countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. Users can send money to other Klarna customers using a phone number, email address, QR code or saved contact. Klarna said it planned to open the service to non-Klarna customers and cross-border payments “soon,” and that it was exploring stablecoin-based payment options to replace traditional banking rails. 

“Customers are sick of the friction and fees of traditional banking, which is why millions signed up to Klarna Card within a few months of launch,” Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in a statement. “With peer-to-peer payments we’re making it even easier to manage all of your payments through Klarna, now including small transfers, making managing your money quicker, easier, and cheaper.”

The move into peer-to-peer is the company’s latest step to diversify its business beyond point-of-sale financing post IPO. Klarna offers a digital wallet, a debit card powered by Marqeta and Visa’s Flexible Credentials, and phone plans. 

Demand for its digital wallet, Klarna Balance, and debit card has been on the rise. As of September 2025, Klarna held about $14 billion in deposits globally, compared to $9.5 billion in August 2024, when the service launched. And the Klarna Card logged about 4 million sign-ups in its first four months since its launch, according to Klarna.   —Joey Pizzolato

Payments group wants UK stablecoin cap removed

As U.K. regulators work on regulations for stablecoins, a trade group called the Emerging Payments Association is nudging the government to simplify the rules and remove some restrictions. 

The EPA’s 2026 manifesto says the Bank of England’s stablecoin proposal is “overly complex and unworkable.” The EPA has more than 150 members including payment networks, banks and issuers, merchant acquirers, payment-service providers and retailers.

The trade association issued recommendations to the BofE, including removing holding limits on stablecoins and making clear distinctions between U.K.-issued stablecoins and coins from other countries. The EPA also wants the BofE to make it easier for small to medium-sized businesses to support stablecoins for payments. 

The BofE has proposed a limit of about $26,000 for individuals and about $13 million for businesses.

Other trade groups have also pushed back against U.K. stablecoin limits. The U.K. Crypto Asset Business Council, which lobbies for Coinbase, Ripple and more than a dozen other cryptocurrency companies, said the U.K. caps would lead to costly compliance projects, such as more advanced identity systems or increased coordination between digital wallets. —John Adams

Clover adds biometrics for identity verification

Fiserv is adding biometrics to Clover, its point of sale platform, that will allow consumers to link loyalty, payments and age verification to their face and palm. 

Fiserv partnered with Wink, a biometrics and payments fintech, to launch the service, which will initially be available at quick service restaurants, sports venues and retailers, with continued rollout this year. 

“The future of commerce is the unification of payment and identity,” said Sanjay Saraf, Fiserv’s global chief product officer of merchant solutions, in a statement.

Clover merchants will be able to connect in-store, mobile and online through a single biometric identity. Consumers can enroll at an in-store Clover device, or on a personal device at home, Matt Marino, president of Wink, told American Banker at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference. 

“When you identify someone before they provide their payment instrument, it allows for all sorts of unique, clever ways of offering a discount or free coffee,” Marino said. 

Biometric payments have been gaining popularity as more consumers become comfortable with the technology, in large part thanks to Apple’s FaceID feature on the iPhone, he said. 

“There is a level of trust that is within the broader consumer ecosystem that didn’t exist even like 5 or 10 years ago,” Marino said. —Joey Pizzolato

NCR Atleos finds ATM demand in Greece

With ATM makers targeting banks that are changing their self-service strategy to accommodate digital-financial services, NCR Atleos added Epirus Bank as a client. The Epirus, Greece-based Epirus will use NCR Atleos to upgrade its ATM network, enabling self-service machines that the bank can manage remotely. 

Atleos will provide location selection, installation, maintenance and operational support. The deployment is expected to be complete by March. ATMs will feature Epirus Bank and NCR Alteos’ Cashzone ATM management brands. 

“This collaboration comes at a pivotal moment for Epirus Bank as we embark on a nationwide expansion across Greece,” Ioannis Vougioukas, CEO of Epirus Bank, said in a release. 

NCR Atleos is part of a 2022 split from NCR, a payments technology company that for decades sold checkout hardware. 

Following the split, NCR Atleos focuses on ATMs, considered a more mature industry with steady growth; while NCR Voyix sells digital commerce – a faster-growing industry. NCR Voyix has added e-commerce tools to compete with Amazon, Stripe and other technology companies that sell to merchants. NCR Atelos focused on ATM-as-a-service, which enables institutions to outsource ATM management, upgrades, compliance and other functions. —John Adams

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

PayPal doubles down on Deutsche Bank collaboration

PayPal is attempting to increase its footprint in international markets, a strategy that includes expanding its work with Deutsche Bank. 

The Frankfurt-based bank will add merchants that support PayPal for settlement, and will introduce withdrawal and collection via PayPal in the U.S. Deutsche Bank, which offered PayPal as an option previously, will also add more PayPal products in the EU and Asia.

“By combining PayPal’s global reach with Deutsche Bank’s expertise in cash management and merchant solutions, we are adding more resiliency and diversification to our platform,” Kausik Rajgopal, executive vice president for strategy, partnerships and corporate development at PayPal, said in a release.

PayPal is relying on partnerships to scale its international payments business. It recently introduced PayPal World, which connects PayPal to India’s national UPI payment network, TenPay Global and Mercado Pago, a Latin American digital wallet. This is designed to push PayPal deeper into a cross-border retail payment market that is on pace to pass $62 trillion by 2032, according to FXC Intelligence.—John Adams 

Ant International adds Google’s agentic commerce protocol

Google’s standards for agentic artificial intelligence are starting to scale, with a deal with Singapore-based payments and financial-technology company Ant International.

Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol uses a common language model for AI agents to communicate and to verify their legitimacy. Google’s Gemini app or the AI mode in Google search provide the underlying technology. UCP adds to Google’s Agent Payments Protocol, an earlier agentic AI standard for checkout.  

“For agentic commerce to scale, it’s critical for the industry to align on a common set of standards,” said Ashish Gupta, vice president and general manager of merchant shopping at Google, in a release. 

Ant is expanding its agentic- commerce strategy, aiming to give merchants more control over AI-powered shopping, as well as providing security and interoperability among agents. Other firms such as Coinbase, PayPal and Mastercard have also developed protocols to guide agentic commerce.—John Adams 

Revolut adds call identification tool to fight impersonation scams

Revolut is adding an identification tool to its app to combat against impersonation scams, a tactic that has gained popularity among fraudsters amid the proliferation of generative AI.

The feature will confirm through the Revolut app whether a customer is on a phone call and verifies if that customer is actually talking to a Revolut agent, according to the neobank. In instances where the caller is impersonating a Revolut agent, the customer will see a large banner in the app alerting them. 

“Revolut is committed to building a safer financial future. As fraudsters adopt AI and advanced deepfake tools, we need to innovate fast to defend our customers and stay ahead of rapidly evolving fraud threats,” Revolut’s Product Owner Rami Kalai said in a statement. “This new feature not only gives users real-time, contextual warnings in the moment they need them most but also guides them to identify impersonation scams providing clear, actionable steps to keep their money safe while the fraud attempt is happening.”

Older adults are more prone to impersonation scams than younger adults, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The number of adults who lost $10,000 or more to scams involving the impersonation of known government agencies or businesses increased by more than fourfold from 2020 to 2024, and the number of adults who reported losing more than $100,000 increased nearly sevenfold in the same time period, according to the FTC. —Joey Pizzolato

Stablecoin fintech Rain lands $250 million in funding

Rain, a stablecoin-backed card-issuing fintech, secured a fresh influx of capital that the company plans to use to expand its presence in markets where it is licensed and develop new products. 

Rain has a presence in nearly every continent, including North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. 

The $250 million Series C was led by ICONIQ, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor Catalyst, according to Rain. 

The round brings Rain’s total funding to more than $338 million, and values the company at $1.95 billion, Rain said.  

“Stablecoins are quickly becoming the way money moves in the 21st century, but adoption by users worldwide requires cards and apps that just work,” said Farooq Malik, co-founder and CEO of Rain, in a statement. “This funding lets us bring that infrastructure to new markets and help additional enterprises go live and scale quickly everywhere.” —Joey Pizzolato