Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

How people purchased goods and services online, at the in-store point of sale (POS), or on mobile devices changed significantly during the pandemic. Whether or not businesses closed their brick-and-mortar storefronts, they experienced a shift to contactless and online channels as a safer way to transact for businesses and consumers.  …

Square Inc. announced Thursday the addition of three inventory-management features to its cloud-based retail-management app, Square for Retail. Merchants can use the new features to build an inventory library, track inventory by warehouse or store, transfer stock as needed, and reorder inventory with one click. The new features arrive as …

Deluxe Corp. is best known as the largest supplier of checks in the United States, but early Thursday it showed how serious it is about staking a major claim in digital payments. The Shoreview, Minn.-based company announced it has agreed to pay $960 million in cash for First American Payment …

Discover Financial Services reported $1.6 billion in net income in the 2021 first quarter, a reversal of a $61 million loss in the same quarter in 2020. Discover said its payment services volume was $75.9 billion, a 19% increase year-over-year. Dollar volume on its Pulse debit network increased 23% year-over-year, driven …

Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its Amazon One biometric payment technology to Whole Foods stores in Seattle. Amazon, which launched Amazon One in its two Seattle Amazon Go stores last September, will initially roll the technology out to a Whole Foods store near its headquarters and eventually to seven more stores …

The buy now, pay later trend has eased online purchases for consumers over the past year, but at the other end of those transactions is the flow of returns after buyers get their merchandise. Now Affirm Holdings Inc., a leading player in the fast-growing BNPL arena has attacked the issue with …

French processor Worldline S.A. reported its first-quarter merchant-services revenue dropped 8.7% year-over-year to 517 million euros ($621 million), while its terminals and software unit saw a 16.5% decline to 266 million euros ($320 million). Worldline acquired terminal maker Ingenico Group S.A. in October.FIS Inc. said it has won a domestic acquiring license for its Worldpay …

North America has emerged as the largest sales-generating region for buy now, pay later provider Afterpay Ltd. In the Australia-based company’s latest financial results, North America sales accounted for A$2.6 billion (US$2 billion) in the third quarter ended March 30. Only Australia and New Zealand approach that volume. Overall, Afterpay said …

Some 83% of consumers said they had used a QR code in the past year to make a payment or complete a financial transaction, with 54% of those persons saying they had used a QR code for those purposes for the first time in only the past three months. Still, just 39% …

With its name change having become official Monday, Cantaloupe Inc. is looking to start a new chapter in the company’s history as it embarks on a strategy to penetrate new segments of the unattended retail market and grow its business internationally. As part of the change from USA Technologies Inc., …

Saturday has come and gone, and it appears plenty of gas stations—including many branded by major oil companies—are still falling short of chip card acceptance at the pump, despite a deadline for EMV compliance that fell on April 17. Some 48% of fuel and convenience-store sellers have complied with the …

San Francisco late last week became the fourth city to roll out Cubic Transportation Systems’ mobile contactless-payment application, joining Washington D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles. Consumers can use the white-label app and an iPhone or Apple Watch to purchase tickets from the 24 transit agencies that operate the city’s subway, …

Mastercard Inc. said it will acquire Ekata, a digital identity services company, for $850 million. Ekata helps identify good customers and businesses and bad actors in real time, it said. Ekata, formerly the business-to-business unit of Whitepages Pro, spun off in 2019 and adopted the new name. The deal is expected …

More evidence emerges of how consumer spending has changed in the past year. Consumers are using their debit cards more for transactions at hotels and motels within the travel sector, according to the PSCU Payments Index for April. Released Thursday, the index shows that debit card use accounted for 35% …

Payments provider Nuvei Corp. has agreed to acquire Mazooma Technical Services Inc., a payment-technology provider for sports betting, for $56 million plus additional consideration upon achievement of performance criteria.Payments fintech Mogo Inc. has closed on its acquisition of a nearly 20% interest in digital-asset trading platform Coinsquare Ltd.The Clipper app, introduced by Cubic Transportation Systems and …

After the current U.S. Congress was sworn in, a predictable chorus of merchants, lobbyists, and lawmakers demanded new interchange price caps and other government mandates to decrease credit card interchange fees for merchants. The tired attacks on credit cards are an easy narrative that focuses almost exclusively on the cost …

Faster-payment volume soared 88% on the nation’s automated clearing house network in the year’s first quarter compared to the same period in 2020, Nacha reported Thursday. Transactions processed the same day they were initiated totaled 141.1 million, compared to 75 million in last year’s March quarter, the last period before …

On its first day of trading as a public company, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. saw its stock finish at $328.28 per share after starting the day at $381 and rising as high as $429.54 on the Nasdaq. The day’s activity left Coinbase with a valuation of $85 billion on a diluted basis, making …

The OLB Group Inc. on Thursday became the latest processor to support contactless payments and ticketing in sports stadiums when it announced it is partnering with EZ Sports Technologies to equip three arenas that are home to amateur baseball teams operated by National Sports Services. As part of the deal, …

ParTech Inc., a point-of-sale software provider to the restaurant industry, announced Wednesday that it will provide Culver’s restaurants with its Brink POS software across the company’s more than 790 locations. As part of the deal, Culver’s worked with long-time partner Retail Data Systems of Wisconsin, a provider of POS services, …