Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Taking a page from Square Inc.’s playbook, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo peer-to-peer payments service is testing what it calls Venmo Business Profiles, a potentially revenue-generating service that enables Venmo users who are sole proprietors of small businesses to sell goods through an affiliated page visible to other Venmo users. Announced …

With real-time payments comes real-time risk, and now banks and their technology vendors are attacking the problem of how to make sure funds moving in the blink of an eye are flowing to the proper accounts. The latest move comes from banking power BNY Mellon, which on Thursday said it …

Before being upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment choices U.S. consumers made were fairly stable. The biggest changes from 2018 to 2019 were an upswing in online bill payments and continued slippage in cash usage, according to new findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Based on a …

A group of 16 European banks said they plan to launch a “truly European” unified payments system by 2022 that would be an alternative to Visa and Mastercard, Reuters reported.The slowdown in in-store shopping due to the Covid-19 pandemic has caused some stores to run out of coins; most recently big-box grocery chain …

Evidence continues to accumulate that the Covid-19 pandemic is not only boosting contactless and online payments, but doing so in historically short order. Some 48% of small and medium-size merchants reported in mid-June that they had observed an increase in the number of consumers either using contactless payments or asking …

A new rule requiring all financial institutions in the automated clearing house network to participate in ACH governing body Nacha’s contact registry took effect Wednesday. The registry’s purpose is to enable financial institutions to quickly find the appropriate person to resolve issues when a transaction looks fraudulent or presents other …

MagTek Inc. said its Magensa unit launched token technology to make touchless payments easier. The technology enables a merchant to send a payment link containing the token via email or text that allows consumers to pay in a secure environment. MagTek said the technology is available in QwickPAY, the Magensa mobile …

The fallout from the Wirecard AG financial scandal has hit the U.S. market as the processor’s North American unit announced late Monday it is seeking a buyer. Wirecard North America Inc., based in Conshohocken, Pa., said it has engaged an unnamed investment bank to assist in the transaction. In the …

A new European Commission report shows how interchange regulation has lowered merchants’ payment card acceptance costs and taken more than $3 billion a year from card issuers’ top lines. The EC, the executive arm of the Brussels-based European Union, implemented its so-called Interchange Fee Regulation in 2015 and 2016. The …

Website-creation platform Wix.com Ltd. launched its e-commerce service that offers Wix Payments, a payment-processing service.The Regal movie-theater chain, a unit of Cineworld Group, said it will reopen its 541 U.S. theaters July 31 and will implement contactless payments along with other measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.Marqeta Inc. said it will support issuance …

Chargebacks reverberate throughout the payment stream, and now Chargebacks911 has released a tool that it says will help financial institutions better manage them. Dubbed Fi911, the tool is meant to automate procedures and make them more efficient, Clearwater, Fla.-based Chargebacks911 says. The company says more chargeback inquiries are being directed …

Stories too good to be true often aren’t. The curtain has at long last been pulled back on high-flying payments fintech Wirecard AG. A whopping $2.1 billion in cash on its balance sheet can’t be verified and likely never existed. Chief executive Markus Braun has resigned and was arrested. Chief …

American Express Co. announced a global, $200 million Shop Small campaign to support small businesses, many of which have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. U.S. AmEx cardholders can get $5 back after they spend $10 or more, up to 10 times, when they buy online or in-store at qualified businesses …

While e-commerce sales overall have ballooned for many merchants since the March 11 declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic, health-and-beauty and business supplies generally did not. Until last week. Online business supplies sales were up 21% and health-and-beauty sales were up 20% for the week of June 16-22, reports the Signifyd …

ATM network operator Cardtronics plc said customers of Social Finance Inc. (SoFi) will get access to the 55,000 ATMs in the Cardtronics-owned Allpoint surcharge-free network, including several at the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, under a new agreement between the companies.Payment technology provider Galileo announced the full launch of Galileo Instant, a service …

All card schemes are now on board with the new deadline for the U.S. EMV liability shift in April 2021. So, the time to upgrade—if you haven’t—is now.  Adding EMV chip readers both inside a store and at automated fuel dispensers (AFDs) isn’t intended to be a hardship for gas …

Paysafe Group on Thursday capped a recent restructuring of its payment-processing unit with the appointment of a chief executive for the unit’s U.S. acquiring division. Afshin Yazdian on July 1 will take over the division, one of two businesses formed with the splitting of the company’s payment-processing unit. Paysafe also …

German payments provider Wirecard, which entered the U.S. market in 2016, filed for insolvency, it announced Thursday, following the disclosure last week of more than $2 billion in disputed cash. It is evaluating whether insolvency will be filed for its subsidiaries.In an update, Mastercard Inc. reported its switched transaction volume recorded a 1% increase in the …

The new regime at unattended-payments provider USA Technologies Inc. is now in place after a proxy fight that deposed the old management team and board of directors, and it’s looking for growth from underexploited opportunities and cost-cutting. “With the uncertainties of the proxy contest now behind us combined with a …

Payments companies have been working for months against a backdrop of consumer fears induced by the new coronavirus, and on Wednesday Shift4 Payments Inc. launched a contactless-payment capability with a twist: it relies on Quick Response codes rather than the much more common near-field communication technology found in major-brand credit …