Facebook faces unfair resistance in the financial industry, he wrote. “I’ve heard multiple conversations about how this proposal would be so great if only Facebook wasn’t involved,” he said. “I understand and accept the need for extra scrutiny due to our scale.”

But Mr. Marcus describes Facebook as a “challenger in the payments industry,” with no specific plan yet to monetize use of the Novi wallet, which won’t charge for person-to-person payments, even across borders.

He added that allowing users to pay with dollars, euros and other fiat currencies via the Novi wallet would bring a lot of value.

“So why not just do that and call it a day?” he wrote. “Well, we might.” But before deciding on that, he doesn’t want to “waste our shot” at incorporating stablecoins into an “open, interoperable protocol” for online payments. “To have the maximum impact, building a closed system using fiat only wasn’t going to cut it,” he said in the memo.

Crypto advocates say...

Facebook’s mission is to “bring the world closer together.” Increasingly, that’s not just about connecting friends and family to share messages, but also serving as a platform for people’s financial lives.

Some $100 billion in payments have been enabled by Facebook over the past year, said David Marcus, who runs the company’s financial services unit. But that’s just the start of the social network’s ambitions in the finance industry, Mr. Marcus writes in a new memo about the country’s “broken” payments system, reported in the DealBook newsletter.

At the center of Facebook’s push into payments is Novi, a digital wallet intended for users to move money around the world quickly and cheaply (free, in many cases). The company had plans to pair it with a “stablecoin” cryptocurrency called Libra, but that was shelved amid regulatory scrutiny, and now the scaled-back project, known as Diem, is overseen by an outside nonprofit group seeking the necessary government...

Facebook’s mission is to “bring the world closer together.” Increasingly, that’s not just about connecting friends and family to share messages, but also serving as a platform for people’s financial lives.

Some $100 billion in payments have been enabled by Facebook over the past year, said David Marcus, who runs the company’s financial services unit. But that’s just the start of the social network’s ambitions in the finance industry, Mr. Marcus writes in a new memo about the country’s “broken” payments system, reported in the DealBook newsletter.

At the center of Facebook’s push into payments is Novi, a digital wallet intended for users to move money around the world quickly and cheaply (free, in many cases). The company had plans to pair it with a “stablecoin” cryptocurrency called Libra, but that was shelved amid regulatory scrutiny, and now the scaled-back project, known as Diem, is overseen by an outside nonprofit group seeking the necessary government...

The former acting governor of the Afghan central bank, who has fled the country, said on Wednesday that nearly all of the bank’s $9 billion in reserves were beyond the reach of the Taliban, who took over the country’s government over the weekend.

Ajmal Ahmady, who was appointed to the central bank just over a year ago, said nearly all the money was held overseas, including $7 billion in assets by the Federal Reserve. In a series of Twitter posts, he added that $1.3 billion in assets were held by other international accounts and about $700 million were held by the Bank of International Settlements, which is based in Switzerland and acts as a bank for central banks.

“We can say the accessible funds to the Taliban are perhaps 0.1-0.2 percent of Afghanistan’s total international reserves,” he wrote. “Not much.”

On Tuesday, a Biden administration official said access has been blocked to Afghan central bank reserves held in the United States. This action, which was...

Mark Wray was working at the concession stand of a movie theater when the pandemic lockdowns hit last year. The movie theater shut down, and he lost his job.

But instead of looking for another low-wage job, Mr. Wray sought a different path. He found a program teaching basic technology and business skills, completed it and landed a job at a fast-growing online mortgage lender. He started in March, working in customer service and tech support. He makes about $55,000 a year, compared with $17,000 at the movie theater.

“The pandemic, weirdly, was an opportunity,” said Mr. Wray, 25, who is a high school graduate and lives in Charlotte, N.C. “And this job is a huge steppingstone for me.”

People returning to the work force after the pandemic are expecting more from their employers, pushing companies to raise pay, give bonuses and improve health care and tuition plans. Paychecks are getting bigger. Wages rose strongly in July, up 4 percent from a year earlier,...

Facebook’s mission is to “bring the world closer together.” Increasingly, that’s not just about connecting friends and family to share messages, but also serving as a platform for people’s financial lives. Some $100 billion in payments have been enabled by Facebook over the past year, said David Marcus, who runs the company’s financial services unit. But that’s just the start of the social network’s ambitions in the finance industry, Marcus writes in a new memo about America’s “broken” payments system.

At the center of Facebook’s push into payments is Novi, a digital wallet intended for users to move money around the world quickly and cheaply (free, in many cases). The company had plans to pair it with a “stablecoin” cryptocurrency called Libra, but that was shelved amid regulatory scrutiny, and now the scaled-back project, known as Diem, is overseen by an outside nonprofit group seeking the necessary government approvals to launch.

In recounting some of Facebook’s...

SIENA, Italy — Last month Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, acquired another distinction: Europe’s weakest lender.

The bank performed worse than any other in a test of its financial health by European regulators, the latest gloomy chapter in a long-running saga of ill-fated deals, financial shenanigans, criminal wrongdoing and even a mysterious death.

The stress test by regulators, which showed that a severe recession would wipe out the bank’s capital, has forced the Italian government to face an unpleasant truth: Monte dei Paschi’s five-and-a-half-century run is coming to an end. With prodding from Rome, UniCredit, one of Italy’s largest banks, said last month that it was in talks to buy Monte dei Paschi on the condition that the government keep all the bad loans.

Monte dei Paschi, founded in 1472, will probably live on as a brand name on bank branches in central Italy, and customers probably won’t notice much difference, at least at...

SIENA, Italy — Last month Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, acquired another distinction: Europe’s weakest lender.

The bank performed worse than any other in a test of its financial health by European regulators, the latest gloomy chapter in a long-running saga of ill-fated deals, financial shenanigans, criminal wrongdoing and even a mysterious death.

The stress test by regulators, which showed that a severe recession would wipe out the bank’s capital, has forced the Italian government to face an unpleasant truth: Monte dei Paschi’s five-and-a-half-century run is coming to an end. With prodding from Rome, UniCredit, one of Italy’s largest banks, said last month that it was in talks to buy Monte dei Paschi on the condition that the government keep all the bad loans.

Monte dei Paschi, founded in 1472, will probably live on as a brand name on bank branches in central Italy, and customers probably won’t notice much difference, at least at...

When Kmart opened its first store, in Garden City, Mich., in 1962, the aim was to become an all-under-one-roof retailer. Americans’ shopping habits had gravitated toward the suburbs after World War II, and Kmart was going to cater to them.

Kmart last opened a new store in 2002; since then, it has all been closings. When it merged with Sears in 2005, Kmart had 2,085 locations. With the abrupt closing of the Astor Place Kmart in Manhattan last month, the number of open Kmart stores is down to 17.

For a time, the company’s real estate decisions worked well. But as shoppers moved farther into the suburbs, Kmart didn’t move with them. Kmart continued to build inside beltways and urban centers, even though its core customers were no longer there, a strategy that helped lead to the company’s tumble, retail experts say.

But the retailers’s two-decade slide has transformed the commercial real estate market in unexpected ways, bringing churches, truck washes and...

When the Paycheck Protection Program began last year to help small businesses that were struggling during the pandemic, the federal government was determined to get the relief money out fast — so it waived much of the vetting lenders traditionally do on business loans.

The absence of those safeguards meant that fraud was highly likely. But just how much of the program’s $800 billion was taken illicitly?

A new academic working paper released on Tuesday contains an estimate: Around 1.8 million of the program’s 11.8 million loans — more than 15 percent — totaling $76 billion had at least one indication of potential fraud, the researchers concluded.

“There’s been a lot of anecdotes about fraud, but the tricky thing about anecdotes is that it’s very difficult to put them together and get at the scale of what’s going on,” said Samuel Kruger, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business and one of the paper’s...

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

When I conducted a little experiment recently for an article to highlight a corner of the cryptocurrency world, I knew I was creating something that would live on after the piece was published. But what happened still took me by surprise.

As a business reporter based in London, I have been riveted in recent months by the booming popularity of so-called hype coins. These are the down-market, volatile cousins of Bitcoin, the graybeard of the cryptocurrency world. There are more than 70,000 of these coins — with names like Klaytn, Chiliz, Helium and others you’ve never heard of — and a few dozen new ones are created each day.

On its face, the hype coin phenomenon is one of the most baffling financial crazes in history. At least if you went bust during the tulip mania in the 17th century, you could end up with some tulips. Hype coins...

SEATTLE — Amazon has eclipsed Walmart to become the world’s largest retail seller outside China, according to corporate and industry data, a milestone in the shift from brick-and-mortar to online shopping that has changed how people buy everything from Teddy Grahams to teddy bears.

Propelled in part by surging demand during the pandemic, people spent more than $610 billion on Amazon over the 12 months ending in June, according to Wall Street estimates compiled by the financial research firm FactSet. Walmart on Tuesday posted sales of $566 billion for the 12 months ending in July.

Alibaba, the giant online Chinese retailer, is the world’s top seller. Neither Amazon nor Walmart is a dominant player in China.

In racing past Walmart, Amazon has dethroned one of the most successful — and feared — companies of recent decades. Walmart perfected a thriving big-box model of retailing that squeezed every possible penny out of its costs, which drove down prices and...

The billionaire founder of Evergrande, China’s most indebted property developer, has stepped down from his position as chairman of the company’s main real estate arm, Hengda Real Estate Group, according to a notice filed to a government website on Tuesday.

The news that Xu Jiayin, the chairman, would be replaced by Zhao Changlong, a previous company director who will take over as general manager of the real estate arm, sent the developer’s shares falling more than 4 percent.

Details of the management change at Hengda Real Estate Group were published on the National Enterprise Credit Information System, a government corporate information site. A spokesperson for Evergrande said Mr. Xu would remain chairman of Evergrande.

Evergrande is the latest Chinese corporate giant to fall under the microscope of regulators looking to rein in unruly corporate debt. One of the country’s most debt-saddled companies, it has as much as $300 billion in unpaid bills, loan and...

ISLE OF WIGHT, England — For the second year running, a hallowed rite for millions of people in Britain — decamping to the warmer climate of the Mediterranean — has been disrupted by the pandemic. The number of flights in and out of Britain are half their 2019 levels.

This year, the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England, has lured even more visitors to its sandy beaches, coastal walks and arcades. But pandemic restrictions, staff shortages and the often uncooperative British weather are challenging visitors and business owners this season.

A scion of the Sackler family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma, vowed in court on Tuesday that the family would walk away from a $4.5 billion pledge to help communities nationwide that have been devastated by the opioid epidemic, unless a judge grants it immunity from all current and future civil claims associated with the company.

Absent that broad release from liability, said David Sackler, 41, a former board member and grandson of one of the founders, the family would no longer support the deal that the parties have painstakingly negotiated over two years to settle thousands of opioids lawsuits brought by states, cities, tribes and other plaintiffs.

“We need a release that is sufficient to get our goals accomplished, and if the release fails to do that, then we will not support it,” Mr. Sackler declared during the fourth day of fractious testimony in the confirmation hearing for the bankruptcy plan of Purdue Pharma, whose misleading marketing of the...

Last month, federal authorities charged the founder of the electric vehicle manufacturer Nikola, which had gone public in the summer of 2020, with defrauding investors. They were led there partly by the work of a little-known Wall Streeter named Nathan Anderson.

A stock researcher and investor, Mr. Anderson and his upstart firm, Hindenburg Research, are having a moment. In early August, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed the sports betting firm DraftKings after Hindenburg said in a June report that it had potentially enabled black-market betting. And shares of Lordstown Motors have fallen nearly 70 percent since Hindenburg said in March that the electric truck maker was hyping commercial interest for its vehicle. Federal authorities are investigating Lordstown’s claims.

Mr. Anderson’s five-person firm, which takes its name from the German airship that blew up in 1937, is a newbie in the world of finance. Founded in 2017, Hindenburg specializes in...

When the Paycheck Protection Program began last year to help small businesses that were struggling during the pandemic, the federal government was determined to get the relief money out fast — so it waived much of the vetting lenders traditionally do on business loans.

The absence of those safeguards meant that fraud was highly likely. But just how much of the program’s $800 billion was taken illicitly?

A new academic working paper released on Tuesday contains an estimate: Around 1.8 million of the program’s 11.8 million loans — more than 15 percent — totaling $76 billion had at least one indication of potential fraud, the researchers concluded.

“There’s been a lot of anecdotes about fraud, but the tricky thing about anecdotes is that it’s very difficult to put them together and get at the scale of what’s going on,” said Samuel Kruger, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business and one of the paper’s...

SEATTLE — Amazon has eclipsed Walmart to become the world’s largest retail seller outside China, according to corporate and industry data, a milestone in the shift from brick-and-mortar to online shopping that has changed how people buy everything from Teddy Grahams to teddy bears.

Propelled in part by surging demand during the pandemic, people spent more than $610 billion on Amazon over the 12 months ending in June, according to Wall Street estimates compiled by the financial research firm FactSet. Walmart on Tuesday posted sales of $566 billion for the 12 months ending in July.

Alibaba, the giant online Chinese retailer, is the world’s top seller. Neither Amazon nor Walmart is a dominant player in China.

In racing past Walmart, Amazon has dethroned one of the most successful — and feared — companies of recent decades. Walmart perfected a thriving big-box model of retailing that squeezed every possible penny out of its costs, which drove down prices and...

The billionaire founder of Evergrande, China’s most indebted property developer, has stepped down from his position as chairman of the company’s main real estate arm, Hengda Real Estate Group, according to a notice filed to a government website on Tuesday.

The news that Xu Jiayin, the chairman, would be replaced by Zhao Changlong, a previous company director who will take over as general manager of the real estate arm, sent the developer’s shares falling by more than 4 percent.

Details of the management change at Hengda Real Estate Group were published on the National Enterprise Credit Information System, a government corporate information site. A spokesperson for Evergrande said Mr. Xu would remain chairman of Evergrande.

Evergrande is the latest Chinese corporate giant to fall under the microscope of regulators looking to rein in unruly corporate debt. One of the country’s most debt-saddled companies, it has as much as $300 billion in unpaid bills, loan and...