Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Fintech myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Europe should lessen its reliance on US payment systems as the prospects of a Trump presidency increases risks around the critical infrastructure’s resilience, the chief executive of Stripe-backed UK tech group TrueLayer warned.

Francesco Simoneschi told the Financial Times that building more resiliency in European payments had become increasingly urgent in light of the upcoming US presidential election.

“Maybe [the US election] is an election that will take us a little bit into a different world,” said Simoneschi, who heads the London-based open banking company. The TrueLayer chief added that one risk would be a shift away from the “integration that has been happening between UK and Europe and the US” in the past 50 years.

“A big portion of payments in Europe and the UK [relies on] US companies, that’s the reality. This critical infrastructure is so stacked from a US standpoint that you may be the target of global actors having a go at that infrastructure.”

The need for independence had been made all the more evident after a global IT outage in July caused by tech company CrowdStrike showed the risks of over-reliance on a single technology, he said.

Simoneschi’s comments come at a time when competition in the UK payments market is under increased scrutiny.

The Payments Systems Regulator is probing the fees charged by Visa and Mastercard, a duopoly that accounts for 95 per cent of all debit and credit card payments in the country. Mastercard also owns Vocalink, which powers the country’s faster payments scheme, which processes bank transfers.

TrueLayer, which was valued at more than $1bn in a 2021 fundraising led by Tiger Global, has announced a series of partnerships for its “pay by bank” solution, which allows customers to make online purchases without going through Visa and Mastercard.

Proponents of pay by bank technology argue it will disrupt ecommerce by allowing consumers to make purchases without having to type out their card numbers, and that it will give retailers a cheaper alternative to Visa and Mastercard, which have increased their fees in recent years.

Simoneschi said Europe had “woken up” to the urgency of building payment independence such as through the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a pan-European card scheme backed by banks to allow bank transfers and digital wallet transactions.

Open banking was seen as a big promise for UK fintech when it was mandated by competition authorities in 2017. However it has since struggled to achieve mass adoption and break the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard.

An African penguin named “Mr. Greedy” died at Baltimore’s Maryland Zoo last week at the age of 33, surpassing his species’ median life expectancy of 18 years.

His secret to longevity? Fathering lots of penguins, apparently. 

Mr. Greedy helped rebuild the penguin population at zoos across North America, zoo officials said. Doing his part to promote the survival of his endangered species, he leaves behind 230 descendants and five generations of offspring as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums African Penguin Species Survival Plan.

Mr. Greedy was euthanized following an age-related decline in his health, the zoo said in a Thursday news release.

Jen Kottyan, the zoo’s bird curator and leader of the survival program, said in a statement: “It’s tough to lose an animal who has been such a welcome presence at our Zoo for three decades.”

But she and her colleagues are proud of the bird’s fertile legacy.

“This one bird was incredibly important to the continued existence of African penguins throughout the world,” Kottyan said.

Mr. Greedy also leaves behind his lifelong mate, Mrs. Greedy. Both birds hatched in 1991 and arrived at the zoo the following year. The pair have been together since 1994, when they hit reproductive age, Kottyan said. She’s now the zoo’s oldest penguin.

Mr. Greedy earned his name due to his stealing habit. He frequently stole nesting materials and food from others, Kottyan told The New York Times. Mrs. Greedy, who partook in her partner’s theft operations, also lives up to her nickname.

In the wake of her partner’s loss, zookeepers are monitoring Mrs. Greedy’s heath.

“Her behavior will determine what happens next,” the zoo’s release read. “If she shows interest, the Zoo will pair her with a single male in the colony as a companion.”

Last month, Sphen, one-half of a famous same-sex penguin couple, died at an aquarium in Sydney. Aquarium staff said they took his partner Magic to see Sphen’s body to give him a chance to mourn and improve the likelihood that he would be able to move on.

Among the Greedy pair’s offspring is Olive, a fifth-generation descendant who helps educate Maryland Zoo visitors about the animals and the threats they face in the wild, according to officials. The zoo is home to the continent’s largest African penguin colony.
 
The wild population of African penguins, which are native to South Africa and Namibia, has declined 75% over the past 20 years, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, mostly due to their scarce food supply. The species’ numbers, once in the millions, have dropped because of overfishing, human disturbance of nesting grounds, pollution and climate change.

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Washington’s top climate diplomat John Podesta has pressed Chinese leaders to come up with ambitious plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 in one of the final meetings between the world’s two largest polluters ahead of the UN COP29 climate summit in November. 

Podesta visited China last week along with other US officials for meetings with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenmin and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, as well as other ministries involved in climate and the environment.

They discussed their fresh targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, as well as climate finance — both expected to be central to wider UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year. 

The UN summit will start soon after the US presidential election, with preparations being made in the shadow of a threat by Donald Trump to withdraw from global climate action were he to win.

Chinese state media reported after the Podesta meetings that Beijing had called on Washington “to maintain consistency with policies and make concerted efforts with China to cope with global challenges”.

A readout from the state department said the two sides discussed their efforts to tackle methane and nitrous oxide emissions, both powerful non-CO₂ greenhouse gases, and committed to holding a summit on the topic as part of the Baku talks. Curbing these emissions is regarded as among the cheapest and fastest ways of limiting global warming in the near term.

China is the world’s largest polluter on an annual basis, contributing about 30 per cent of emissions, but has also led the world in deploying renewable energy and had met its 2030 renewable targets by this year.

By some estimates, China’s greenhouse gas emissions may have also peaked this year, in part because of an economic and property slowdown which has suppressed energy demand and the carbon-heavy production of steel and cement. Views differ on whether this represents a long-term decline, and how much future demand will rely on the rollout of new coal-fired power plants.

The country is also suffering from climate change, with the Chinese Meteorological Administration reporting last week that the average temperature in August was the hottest in six decades at 22.6C, or 1.5 C higher than last year. “Frequent and highly destructive rainstorms [and] large scale heatwaves,” were reported.

The trip to Beijing was Podesta’s first since taking over as Washington’s chief climate diplomat after John Kerry stepped down last year. It comes just months before countries convene for COP29, where both the US and China will be critical to any deal. 

At COP28 in Dubai almost 200 countries agreed to move away from fossil fuels “in a just, orderly and equitable manner” to reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, in the recent Bonn climate talks, countries struggled to make further progress.

Under a road map set out in the UN process, this year countries must also agree on replacing a $100bn annual goal to help developing countries tackle climate change. So far, participants have disagreed over what sources of finance should be included, and who should contribute. 

Developing countries maintain that the developed world, which historically had caused the greatest emissions, should be held financially responsible for damages from climate change.

Richer, western countries say that wealthier developing nations, such as China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India and Brazil, should also contribute towards a global fund.

Another priority in Baku will be talks on carbon market principles.