Dear Subscriber,

In a week that saw Apple Pay going live in China, we continue to explore what looks to be one of the hottest trends of 2016: the evolution of the payment card. Curve, a London startup, wants to consolidate all the existing cards in your wallet into just one card and has just unveiled its product publicly for the first time. In today’s newsletter, we talk to its founder about where he sees the industry heading.

Elsewhere, who would have thought we would have a legitimate reason to write about Monopoly? The board game has embraced the FinTech innovation bug by becoming a cashless economy with contactless cards and ATMs and we consider the real-life significance of the move. In other news, Amazon is renewing intensity on its Indian business with the acquisition of Emvantage Payments and Ken Goins, Vice Chairman of Brightwell, shares his insights on the challenges and opportunity of prepaid in cross border payments.

Physical cards aren’t going away any time soon, but that doesn’t mean paying with them can’t get simpler and cheaper. That’s the basic pitch of London startup Curve, which wants to consolidate all the existing cards in your wallet with just one and has just unveiled its product publically for the first time.

No one is safe from FinTech innovation, not even board games. Hasbro has showcased its new version of Monopoly that has no cash, instead introducing ATMs and contactless cards.

“Prepaid is just part of a process, it’s a component,” said Ken Goins, Vice Chairman of Brightwell. In an interview in the Finetics™ Studio by The Bancorp at Money 20/20 in Las Vegas he shared his insights on the challenges and opportunity of prepaid in cross border payments.

Amazon is renewing intensity on its Indian business with the acquisition of Emvantage Payments. The size of the sum isn’t being released, but Amazon boss and founder Jeff Bezos already put a number on how much he values the region’s potential when he earmarked $2bn for investment in the country back in 2014.

Apple’s mobile payment service will go live in China on 18th February and will be available to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China customers, the bank said in social media posts on Tuesday.