Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

It’s more than 100 days until Christmas, but forecasts for the 2021 holiday shopping season are already rolling in. Mastercard Inc., in its SpendingPulse report released Monday, forecasts that U.S. holiday retail spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 will increase 7.4% over 2020 and 11.1% over the same period …

Commerce specialists SpotOn Transact LLC said it will acquire Appetize Technologies Inc., a point-of-sale technology provider for the hospitality and entertainment industries. Terms were not disclosed. SpotOn also said it raised $300 million in Series E funding, which it will use to help pay for the Appetize acquisition.Integrated-payments provider EngageSmart LLC announced an initial public …

The trend of professional sports stadiums toward adopting cashless technology to bring greater operating efficiencies to concession stands and other retail outlets within the venue has taken another leap forward with Square Inc.’s 10-year deal to provide payment and merchant services to Los Angeles’s SoFi Stadium and adjoining Hollywood Park development. …

Travel search engine Kayak Corp. said it will expand its offering of buy now, pay later capability through provider Uplift Inc. to include bookings on the mobile Web and through the Kayak app.In related news, Wisetack, which specializes in buy now, pay later services for home and auto repair, said it raised $45 …

A new card product that taps the user’s checking account for in-full purchases or installments is in beta testing with “several hundred people,” at buy now, pay later specialist Affirm Holdings Inc., the company’s chief executive, Max Levchin, told equity analysts late Thursday during a session to discuss the company’s …

The momentum behind real-time payments continues to build with announcements Thursday from Data Center Inc. (DCI), a software provider to community banks, and One Inc., a digital-payments processor for the insurance industry. Community banks using DCI’s banking software can now receive real-time payments through the RTP network, the faster-payments system from …

The two big card networks are making preparations for big moves into cryptocurrency payments. But crypto is no stranger to fraud, so Mastercard Inc. on Thursday announced it is acquiring CipherTrace Inc., a 6-year-old company specializing in technology to combat money laundering and other crimes involving digital-currency transactions. The deal, …

Card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. said in the first year of a partnership with Zip Co., an Australia-based buy now, pay later provider that recently changed its U.S. branding to Zip from Quadpay, it experienced a 350% year-over-year increase in BNPL net revenue in the 2021 second quarter.Payments and buy now, pay later …

Wednesday was a busy day for Global Payments Inc. Seeking to expand its share of business-to-business payments processing, the Atlanta-based processing giant on Wednesday agreed to acquire MineralTree Inc., a provider of accounts-payable automation and B2B payments solutions, for $500 million in cash. Global Payments will finance the deal with …

Looking to move further upmarket from the small sellers it started with, Square Inc. on Wednesday announced it is launching its Square Register point-of-sale system in Canada. Square is promoting the technology, which includes a screen facing the customer as well as one for the merchant, as suited to a …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to buy close to 75% of Volkswagen’s payments platform, operated by Volkswagen Payments S.A. Terms of the deal were not announced. The unit supports in-car payments and other services in 32 markets worldwide.Clickatell, an online chat provider, launched Chat 2 Pay, a service that enables …

Mastercard Inc. strengthened its hand in open banking on Monday, reaching an agreement to acquire European open-banking platform provider Aiia. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Mastercard’s position as a provider of open-banking services in Europe. Mastercard established a presence in the business …

North American payments processors are focusing lately on bulking up resources in Latin America, largely via acquisition. The latest example is Montreal-based Nuvei Corp., which on Tuesday said it has acquired Paymentez LLC, a 10-year-old payments provider that enables more than 80 payment methods in Mexico as well as 10 …

PopID, a consumer authentication service, said its PopPay payment service is used more than more 100 restaurant and retail brands. Approximately 70,000 registered users have authenticated their faces more than 4 million times. PopID recently closed on a $10 million Series B funding round and intends to expand to college campuses across …

Vending-payment specialist Cantaloupe Inc. on Friday reported record revenue of $49 million for the June quarter, a 50.2% increase over the same period a year earlier, and a 14.6% increase from the same period in 2021.  Equipment revenue totaled $10.8 million during the quarter, a more than 100% increase from …

U.S. payments networks continue to cultivate their connections to what is for them a potentially massive market in China. In the latest development, Leshua Technology announced early Friday it will support acquiring for American Express Co.’s joint venture in China.  AmEx last year became the first foreign payments company to win …

Accelerated adoption of digital payments during the pandemic helped drive up biometric identity checks by a factor of 20 for ComplyCube in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2020, said the company, which specializes in anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer compliance.Park Place Payments said it signed with acquirer Payroc …

Zilch Technology Ltd. is preparing to become the latest entrant in the U.S. buy now, pay later market. The move hinges on the London-based company’s acquisition of San Francisco-based debt-funding platform Neptune Financial & Management Services LLC (NepFin), a deal Zilch announced on Thursday. The terms were not disclosed. The …

Giant pharmacy chain Walgreen Co. is getting into the banking and debit card business with the launch of Scarlet. Announced Thursday, Scarlet is a Mastercard-branded debit card issued by MetaBank. InComm Payments provides the system for the account. Scarlet works like most bank accounts and is designed to help accountholders …

U.S. consumers are spending $273 per month on subscription services on average, up 15% from the average in 2018, yet they estimate they are spending less, according to a poll from consulting firm West Monroe.Payments provider Nuvei Corp. completed its $250-million cash acquisition of SimplexCC Ltd., a cryptocurrency gateway that links exchanges, brokers, wallets, …