The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s Central Bank, announced it has accepted an application from American Express (AmEx) that expressed the company’s intention to operate in China.

Reuters reported that the PBOC announced the receipt of AmEx’s application via a WeChat post on Wednesday. The bank, however, did not disclose information about the approval timeline.

This follows the PBOC’s approval in November of 2018 for AmEx to clear card payments in partnership with China’s LianLian Pay to process payments in Yuan. This week’s announcement also makes AmEx the first U.S. card network company to gain access into the China market. In order to commence operations, however, AmEx still needs final approval from the PBOC.

China is beginning to open up its credit card payments market to foreign players after restricting access. For the past ten years, foreign payment card companies could only tap into China’s credit card market via partnership with state-run UnionPay.

Visa and Mastercard are expected to follow suit to claim their stake in China’s $27 trillion market.

Traditional players aren’t the only ones eyeing the China opportunity. Last October PayPal gained controlling interest in China-based GoPay. The move granted PayPal a license to offer online payment services in China, making it the first foreign company to be granted such license.

HighRadius, a company that offers AI-powered order-to-cash and treasury management solutions, announced today that it has raised $125 million in Series B funding. The investment boosts the Houston, Texas-based firm’s valuation to $1 billion, earning it the status as one of the first new fintech unicorns of 2020.

The round was led by Iconiq Capital, and featured participation from Citi Ventures and Susquehanna Growth Equity. Iconiq Capital partner Will Griffith praised the way HighRadius’ platform had improved the efficiency of accounts receivable and treasury teams, and put the company’s accomplishments in the broader context of other innovative firms in its portfolio. “Digital transformation is increasingly a CFO priority,” Griffith said, calling HighRadius’s platform “game-changing.”

HighRadius’ integrated receivables technology optimizes accounts receivables operations by combining all receivable and payment modules into a single, unified business process. The company’s treasury management technology provides treasury departments with greater visibility into cash operations – including cash levels – and automates reconciliation. Founded in 2006, the company, which includes Citi and Bank of America Merrill Lynch among its clients, has processed more than $1.3 trillion in transactions via its AI-enabled platform.

“Today marks an important milestone for HighRadius and we’re thrilled to have ICONIQ join us in our vision to modernize the Order to Cash space,” HighRadius founder and CEO Sashi Narahari said. He pledged to build the company “into a self-sustaining, long-term category leader.”

Earlier this year, HighRadius partnered with London-based, e-payments company PPRO to give merchants a broader range of options to accept payments from buyers. The combined offering will allow for the discovery and support of local payment methods (LPMs) in key locations, and is designed to help merchant clients keep up with the increasing diversity of payment options around the world.

This spring, the company unveiled its Collection Agency Data Exchange solution which enables customers using HighRadius Collections Cloud to electronically send accounts and invoices to a trio of third-party collection agencies directly from the HighRadius platform. HighRadius began the year with the launch of its order-to-cash digital assistant, Freeda, and a partnership with the Media Financial Management Association to provide credit management automation for the organization’s subsidiary credit association, BCCA.

Telecommunications giant Sprint and German financial services provider Wirecard announced they are teaming up to deliver the Internet of Payments.

Under the agreement, Sprint will integrate Wirecard’s commerce solutions into its Curiosity Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Essentially, the two will embed payment capabilities into IoT deployments.

Sprint’s Curiosity IoT combines Curiosity Core, a virtualized IoT network, with Curiosity OS, an IoT operating system. The project will be piloted in the retail sector where the two will work together to “deliver the retail experience of the future” by enabling a connected purchasing experience.

“This opens up many commercial opportunities, and also delivers an unparalleled commerce solution for our global clients and their customers,” said Ivo Rook, Sprint’s senior vice president of IoT and product development. “As IoT becomes even more central to how enterprises run, we look forward to identifying new opportunities and use cases for these technologies. The growing internet of things will lead to new and innovative transactions, like directly between devices, and this collaboration will power such use cases.”

IoT has a wide range of applications in the payments space. With IoT, consumers can move beyond traditional payment devices and instead pay using wearables, their car, and voice-enabled devices such as Alexa. In many settings these types of payment methods are already possible but they are not widespread.

Georg von Waldenfels, executive vice president of group business development at Wirecard said that the collaboration will help Wirecard “meet a growing demand for commerce without barriers.” Waldenfels added that teaming up with Sprint is a “significant step toward developing the shopping experience of the future.”

This isn’t Sprint’s first foray in the IoT space with a fintech. In 2018, the company partnered with Dynamics to launch the Wallet Card, an IoT connected, battery-powered payment card.