The world’s largest initial public offering has been disqualified by Chinese regulatory agencies. Fin-tech giant Ant Financial Group’s controlling shareholder Jack Ma and two other top executives got the news from Chinese regulators today. As a result, The Shanghai Stock Exchange suspended the IPO, which was scheduled for Thursday. A concurrent Hong Kong listing will also be suspended. The halted...

US Retail Sales Jump In June (But It Could Be the Last Increase for Some Time) Retail sales were up in May and June as economies reopened. A better-than-expected 7.5% jump in June, following a record-breaking 18.2% increase in sales in May, surpassed economists’ predictions. The rebound occurred after businesses reopened and pent-up demand for retail goods and services came...

Expect the Unexpected in Covid-19’s Wake In the uncertainty that surrounds the coronavirus, Silvio Tavares, CEO of industry trade association Cardlinx, shared perspectives with member executives around the world. Among topics discussed? Travel’s stalled, with hotel occupancy at just 15% and properties slated to close; credit card use is down, impacting the U.S. and other countries where consumer spending accounts...

As part of a global partnership, Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has invested in Klarna. The companies announced that Ant Financial has purchased a <1% ownership in the Swedish financial technology start-up, known for offering shoppers interest-free financing over monthly installments. CardLinx Insight: Ant Financial is an affiliate of Alipay, China’s largest mobile wallet and...

The CardLinx Europe Forum on March 20th was the largest CardLinx gathering in Europe to date. The topic on how IoCT and AI are expanding the definition of retail resonated with many at the conference and was reinforced by the large number of attending companies working throughout the card-linking and O2O ecosystem. Dev Subrata, Fidel’s CEO and the first Europe-based...