Tencent signs with Mastercard, Block nears a $964 million DOJ deal, and Affirm Card passes $3 billion

Monday, 9 November 2026  ·  13 min read

In this issue

QR links for visitors, and large charges on two US balance sheets

Tencent’s TenPay Global signed a memorandum of understanding with Mastercard on 2 November, a week after the one with Visa, and on the same day the HKMA said Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System will link to UnionPay International QR payments by the end of 2026. In the United States, Block disclosed a $964 million agreement in principle with the Department of Justice over its anti-money laundering program, and Fiserv booked a $6.45 billion goodwill impairment while it looks for buyers for noncore businesses. Affirm Card GMV grew 117% to $3.3 billion.

On 2 November, at Hong Kong FinTech Week, TenPay Global and Mastercard signed a memorandum of understanding to explore letting international visitors pay at QR-enabled merchants in the Chinese mainland with their existing wallets and issuer apps. The two also plan to expand remittances into Weixin through Mastercard Move. Tencent and Mastercard said transactions by international digital wallets through Weixin Pay in the mainland grew 81.8% in number and 80.6% in value from January to August 2026 (TWTWIP; PR Newswire; Electronic Payments International).

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank now offers real-time transfers in Egyptian pounds to eligible bank accounts, cards and wallets in Egypt from the ADIB Mobile App, including outside banking hours, at weekends and on public holidays. The service is part of ADIB Remit, launched with Visa in August 2025 (TWTWIP; The Paypers).

Yellow Card, a stablecoin payments infrastructure provider, acquired Sao Paulo-based GoMoney, which helps international businesses accept payments in Brazil through Pix and settle in digital assets. Terms were not disclosed. GoMoney operates under Brazil’s transitional regime for virtual asset service providers while its application for full central bank authorisation is pending (TWTWIP; Finextra).

On 3 November the European Payments Council published updated guidance on how responding payment service providers prepare and compare payee names to return a Match, Close Match or No Match. It covers spelling errors, transposed letters, initials, phonetic variants, abbreviations and commercial names (TWTWIP; EPC; Finextra).

Payments Canada welcomed on 2 November the commitment made at the Canada-EU summit in Montreal on 29 and 30 October to negotiate a connection between the Real-Time Rail and the Eurosystem’s TIPS service. Neither document sets a timeline (TWTWIP; Payments Canada; Finextra).

OKX Card, a Mastercard virtual card issued by WebBank, went live on 2 November for eligible customers, letting them spend USDC, USDT and USDG held in OKX Pay wallets with no transaction or FX fees. Massachusetts, New York and five US territories are excluded (TWTWIP; OKX; PYMNTS).

In its fiscal first-quarter results on 5 November, Affirm reported total GMV up 34% to $14.4 billion, revenue up 35% to $1.3 billion and net income of $164 million. Active cardholders more than doubled to 6.0 million, and Card accounted for 23% of GMV (Affirm shareholder letter; The Motley Fool).

On 3 November, Marqeta reported third-quarter net revenue of $176 million, up 8%, and gross profit of $122 million, up 7%. Net income of $115 million includes a $107 million non-cash tax benefit. Marqeta guides to net revenue growth of 3 to 5% in the fourth quarter (Marqeta).

The HKMA said on 2 November, at Hong Kong FinTech Week, that FPS users will progressively be able to pay by scanning QR codes at more than 100 million merchants on UnionPay and partner networks in Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and more than 40 overseas markets (TWTWIP; HKMA).

The HKMA said on 2 November that its Ensemble TX pilot can now settle interbank tokenised deposit transactions in tokenised central bank money around the clock. The pilot has grown to 12 banks and 20 industry pioneers, including Ant International and BlackRock (TWTWIP; HKMA).

India’s National Payments Corporation set up a technology and innovation arm focused on artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital financial infrastructure and global capability centre services, led by chief technology officer Vishal Kanvaty. It already has work on the eKYC Setu identity verification infrastructure and a QR-based Unified Ticketing Platform (TWTWIP; Finextra).

In a counter affidavit filed on 3 November, NPCI said merchants and UPI apps are barred from passing the planned MDR of up to 0.4% on person-to-merchant payments above ₹2,000 on to customers, LiveLaw reported on 5 November. NPCI said the charge would apply to about 4% of person-to-merchant transactions, and person-to-person transfers and small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month stay free (TWTWIP; LiveLaw; NPCI FAQs).

Block disclosed in its third-quarter filing on 3 November that it agreed in principle in October to resolve a charge that it failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program under the Bank Secrecy Act. The proposed three-year deferred prosecution agreement has a $964 million monetary component, of which Block would pay about $764 million after $200 million in credit for prior regulatory resolutions (TWTWIP; Payments Dive; Reuters via StreetInsider).

two networks queue up for Weixin Pay, and Hong Kong joins UnionPay

Tencent signed memorandums with both Visa and Mastercard within a week, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced a UnionPay QR link for its Faster Payment System. All three announcements target the visitor who lands in a market whose wallets were built for residents.

Tencent supplied the only usage figures. Transactions by international digital wallets through Weixin Pay in the mainland grew 81.8% in number and 80.6% in value from January to August 2026 (PR Newswire). Tencent gave no base, so the growth rates cannot be converted into a volume, and neither memorandum carries a launch date. The Visa memorandum of 29 October covers travellers entering and leaving China, Visa Direct remittances into Weixin Pay and AI agent payments. The Mastercard text covers visitors paying at QR merchants, remittances through Mastercard Move and agentic payments.

The two memorandums are close to identical in scope, and both networks signed before any commercial terms were published. Tencent decides which foreign wallets and cards reach its merchants, and each network wants the same thing, which is access to Weixin Pay merchants that its cards cannot reach through the usual acquiring route.

The HKMA announcement points the other way. FPS users will scan UnionPay QR codes at more than 100 million merchants in Hong Kong, the mainland and more than 40 overseas markets (HKMA). A domestic instant payment system becomes a travel wallet through one link to a network that already runs QR acceptance abroad. Malaysia took a similar step on 28 October when PayNet connected Maybank, CIMB and Hong Leong Bank apps to Alipay+ merchants in five markets.

The registration question already has one answer in the region. PayNet customers scan Alipay+ merchant codes from their Malaysian bank apps with no Alipay+ account or separate wallet, and Bank Islam is to follow. The TenPay Global memorandum speaks of visitors using their existing wallets and issuer apps, which points the same way, although the text does not promise it.

Three points decide whether any of this reaches travellers, and the sources disclose none of them. Those points are the settlement currency, the fees Tencent charges the networks, and whether a visitor has to register before the first payment.

Watch for the first live corridor under either memorandum, and for the HKMA launch date of the FPS and UnionPay link.

Verification of Payee

Verification of Payee (VOP) is a check that a payer’s bank runs before a credit transfer is sent, in which the payee’s bank compares the name the payer typed with the name on the account and replies Match, Close Match or No Match. The European Payments Council scheme that defines the process published version 2.0 of its name-matching recommendations on 3 November, and each responding provider remains responsible for the result (EPC).

Affirm Card, the card Affirm sells directly to consumers, produced $3.3 billion of GMV in the quarter ended 30 September 2026, up 117% from a year earlier, and 23% of Affirm’s total GMV of $14.4 billion. Affirm counted 6.0 million active cardholders, more than double the number a year earlier (Affirm shareholder letter).