Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Alchemy Pay, a payment gateway allowing users to exchange cryptocurrency and fiat money, launched its Crypto Card, a “mini app” backed by the user’s cryptocurrency. The promotion offers vouchers reducing the application fee to a penny from a dollar for a limited time. Fintech at Cornell has published “Cornell Convenes: Toward …

Payments provider Talus Pay announced two acquisitions on Thursday, indicating it acquired Clarus Merchant Services and Jobox.ai in separate deals. Total annual payments volume for the newly combined company total $9 billion for more than 22,000 U.S. merchants. Dallas-based Talus Pay says Clarus Merchant Services, based in Gaithersburg, Md., provides …

Online shoppers in the United States spent a record $222.1 billion during the holiday shopping season that ran between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, a 4.9%increase from the same period a year earlier, according to Adobe Analytics. November was a strong month for online holiday purchases, with consumers spending $123.5 billion …

Visa Inc. launched its Web3 Loyalty Engagement Solution, a platform that enables rewards for consumers who interact with businesses on digital platforms. Vetster, a telehealth provider for veterinary care, announced it is expanding its services in California to include online diagnosis and prescriptions, with online payments. Reacting to heightened check fraud, …

Digital-payments provider Wirex says it is working with ZeroFox Holdings Inc., a provider of cybersecurity technology, to incorporate ZeroFox’s Dark Web Monitoring app into its platform. Wirex’s blockchain-based service enables consumers to buy, sell, send, spend, and store fiat and crypto currency through the Wirex digital wallet. ZeroFox’s Dark Web …

RDE Inc., owner of Restaurant.com, a popular dining-deals site, has closed on its acquisition of CardCash Exchange LLC, operator of CardCash.com, a secondary gift card marketplace. The deal advances RDE’s presence in gift cards for consumers and merchants. The combined business accounted for more than $100 million in revenue in …

Kindcard Inc., which among other services provides closed-loop payments technology connecting businesses and consumers, said it has entered a letter of intent to acquire OpenTransact from AcePay Inc. OpenTransact offers a banking platform that supports high-risk merchants. Terms were not disclosed. The tokens USDT and USDC dominate the stablecoin market, …

Buy now, pay later volume globally will grow 48.3% in 2024, to $232.2 billion, according to a projection from The Business Research Co. Increasing adoption at physical retail stores, growth in cross-border e-commerce, and the rise of financial apps embedding BNPL capability will help account for the growth, the firm said. …

As the digital economy continues to grow, people are relying on virtual transactions more than ever. But with the expansion of digital money movement comes new opportunities for fraudsters to exploit merchants and their customers. In today’s economy, fraudulent activity can happen anywhere, to just about anyone. Digital cybercriminals are …

TurboTenant, an online property-management platform that enables landlords to collect rent payments, said it will work with Lula, a property-maintenance firm, for maintenance services and payment of service fees. Some 600,000 landlords are said to use TurboTenant’s platform. MoneyGram and Stellar Development Foundation announced they have invested an undisclosed sum in …

The big home-improvement chain Lowe’s has started to accept Apple Pay in its stores, according to reports. The chain, which maintains more than 2,000 U.S. stores, has long accepted Apple Inc.’s mobile-payment service online and in its app.

U.S. retail sales, excluding automotive products, grew 3.1% year-over-year in the Nov. 1 through Dec. 24 period, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse. The result is not adjusted for inflation. Standouts were e-commerce sales, up 6.3%, and restaurants, at 7.8%. The worst performer was jewelry, at negative 2%. Blockchain operator Paxos said it will …

Having taken aim at credit card late fees and interest rates, and having targeted non-bank digital wallet providers, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra has now indicated his regulatory agency is turning its attention to credit card acceptance costs. Chopra’s comments Thursday came as the Credit Card Competition Act, …

The data-sharing routines undergirding a wide variety of payments services offered by fintechs like PayPal and Block depend on open banking, which has emerged to enable crucial information transfers from financial institutions while keeping sensitive account data from falling into the wrong hands. Now the latest update to the rules …

Overfuel, a provider of online payments for automobile dealerships, has integrated credit reporting from 700Credit LLC to allow users to prequalify for credit on a dealer’s Web site or on a mobile phone. Accounting platform Data Plus is teaming with Edenred Pay, a back-end payments provider for the hospitality industry, to launch …

Buy now, pay later loans have become in a relatively short time a popular financing option for consumers, especially for holiday-season shopping. But now, that’s increasingly true not just for gifts, but for everyday purchases as well, according to data from payment-solutions and card-issuing platform provider Marqeta Inc. Based on …

As digital transactions proliferate, technology is enabling automakers to do more than make it easy to pay for parking from a dashboard. Features that have been standard in many cars, such as heated seats, can now be a service fee away. Such software-related revenue is forecasted to grow at a …

LawFi, a payments platform for law firms, announced a $1.5-million pre-seed funding round from Capital Q Ventures. Digital-banking provider Ibanera announced Portl, a set of blockchain-based payments technologies for online gaming. NordVPN, a vendor of cybersecurity technology, launched an insurance program offering victims of identity theft reimbursement up to $1 million for …

The big payments processor Worldpay early Wednesday and late Tuesday announced two major deals, one of which will see it supporting multichannel payments for HMV, a London-based seller of DVDs, audio cassettes, CDs, and other entertainment products through a chain of more than 100 stores. The other development, announced late …

Citing a payments industry that is united in its opposition to the Credit Card Competition Act, research from the Congressional Research Service questioning the benefits of the legislation, and suspect support for the bill among members of Congress, the Electronic Payments Coalition says it is primed to continue its fight …