Today In Payments: UK Watchdog Investigates Klarna Over Email Fiasco; Mastercard, Stride Enable Benefits To Gig Workers

In today’s top news, a U.K. watchdog is investigating Klarna over a recent email fiasco, and Mastercard and Stride are teaming to offer benefits to gig workers. Plus, the U.S. might add Ant Group to its trade blacklist.

UK Watchdog Investigates Klarna Over Email Fiasco

The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is launching a probe against Sweden’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Klarna over complaints about a recent email marketing campaign. People complained that they had received a marketing email from Klarna containing personal information even though they had never signed up with the payments firm.

Mastercard, Stride Enable Portable Health Benefits To Gig Workers

Mastercard is working with portable benefits program Stride in order to help companies offer U.S. gig and independent workers access to affordable healthcare plans that they can keep as they change jobs.

Report: Trump May Put Ant Group On Trade Blacklist

The U.S. State Department has proposed President Donald Trump add FinTech Ant Group, which has strong ties to the Alibaba Group empire, to a list of foreign companies to which U.S. companies cannot sell certain technology.

MercadoLibre To Invest More Than $716M In Brazil

MercadoLibre, which operates platforms for buying and selling goods across Central and South America, is eyeing an investment in Brazil next year that would be even bigger than its $716 million investment this year.

PayPal Invests In Extend As Merchants Seek New Ways To Boost Online Conversion

There was always one big problem with extended warranties: they were a paper-based pain for consumers to activate, so 99 percent of them never did. Embedding the offer into the purchase stream, CEO Woody Levin of Extend tells Karen Webster, not only boosts sales of the product, even if an extended warranty isn’t purchased, it drives pure profit to the bottom line when they do. It’s one of the reasons, he said, PayPal just made a major investment in Levin’s firm.

How Visa, FIS, TCH, SWIFT, Nacha And Circle See The Future Of Faster, Real-Time Payments Rails

Corporates and financial institutions are racing to digitize and modernize payment flows and back-end processes, but there are several options and payment rails to consider. In a new PYMNTS TV segment, Alan Koenigsberg, global head of new payment flows at Visa New Business Solutions, along with top executives from The Clearing House, FIS, Nacha, SWIFT and Circle, say room exists for several payment rails to compete, coexist and even complement one another.

EU ‘Hit List’ And US House Antitrust Report Could Spell Big Trouble For Big Tech

EU regulators are crafting a “hit list” of roughly 20 companies — including Big Tech marquee names — that will face tougher rules over market competition.