Bloomberg Volkswagen AG bought North American parking-payment operator PayByPhone in the latest move by Europe’s biggest carmaker to expand from manufacturing into mobility services. The purchase of Vancouver-based PayByPhone, which processed more than $250 million in transactions this year, will turn the German company’s Volkswagen Financial Services unit into the leader in mobile payments for parking, the automaker said ...

  Berlin / AFP Britain’s chief financial officers are turning optimistic as they head into the new year, though they intend to be cautious amid the cloudy economic outlook, according to Deloitte. The number of CFOs that are more positive about the prospects for their companies outweigh those who are more pessimistic by the most in 18 months, the fourth-quarter ...

  Berlin / AFP German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn said on Thursday it planned to significantly ramp up cargo transport to China following a record year, using the world’s longest train line in a modern-day revival of the Silk Road route. More than 40,000 containers were transported between the two countries in 2016, up from 35,000 a year earlier ...