Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Payments provider Priority Technology Holdings Inc. announced it has entered into a so-called stalking-horse agreement to bid on the assets of Plastiq Inc., an 11-year-old payments provider that has entered Chapter 11 restructuring. Terms of the bid were not disclosed. Freshmart, a Puerto Rico-based grocer with seven stores, said it has chosen eGrowcery to …

Citizens Bank has launched the Private Client World Elite Mastercard, which uses tactile notches on the side of the card to help visually impaired consumers determine the type of card they are using—credit, debit or prepaid—by touch alone. The card features different types of notches to distinguish the card type …

U.S. investment managers have grown bullish about Bitcoin’s prospects despite recent events that have roiled digital-currency markets, research released Wednesday indicates. Feeding the renewed optimism are prospects for “improved regulation” and expectations of a “recovery in valuations” for Bitcoin, according to the research, in which 30 major investment managers were …

Four-year-old payments provider Green Payments said it has expanded into a new office after what it says was a “record year of portfolio and employee growth.” The company, which focuses on health care, hospitality, and automotive sales, says its portfolio grew 134% last year to a total of $1.2 billon in volume. …

By Tom Byrnes, SVP, Marketing, PayiQ Cloud architecture has made complicated database computing tasks more accessible and unified for everybody. But, until recently, it’s been an open question for many whether the cloud can be a disruptive force in the world of payment processing. Most big processors that are active …

Cantaloupe Inc., a specialist in micropayments, announced on Tuesday it has teamed up with Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) to use AWS cloud services and make AWS its preferred provider to handle transaction volume flowing through Cantaloupe’s merchant network. Cantaloupe, which specializes in payments technology for vending machines and self-service marketplaces, handles …

Amazon.com Inc. is adding another feature to its Amazon One palm-based identity service, and Chinese site WeChat has brought palm recognition to cameras used for facial recognition. Amazon One has added an age-verification component, Amazon said in a blog post. Launched in 2020, the technology recently expanded beyond Amazon properties …

As part of a settlement with Citizens Bank, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is requiring the bank to pay a $9-million civil money penalty for its alleged failure to “properly manage and respond to customers’ credit card disputes and fraud claims.” The agreement is subject to approval by the court. UATP, a …

In the hotly competitive restaurant point-of-sale market, acquirers are constantly devising new products and enticements to attract these merchants. To that end, SpotOn Transact LLC said Monday it has released three new point-of-sale devices for restaurants, and Shift4 Payments Inc. has enlisted hospitality expert Jon Taffer in a contest. Announced …

PayPal Holdings Inc. announced early Monday it is launching a version of its Venmo peer-to-peer payment service tailored for teenagers. With the new program, parents holding a Venmo account can open one for a child aged 13 to 17 that will include a Mastercard debit card. Parents can exercise control …

The share of all payments using cash declined only modestly to 18% in 2022 from 20% in 2021, while the share of in-person and person-to-person payments has stayed constant at 81%, according to the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice from the Federal Reserve System’s FedCash Services. Sunmi Technology Co., a China-based point-of-sale …

Small businesses in Canada will reap lower interchange rates in that country, the Department of Finance Canada announced Thursday. The deal suggests a similar reduction is possible in the United States, the Merchant Payments Coalition quickly responded. Both Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. agreed to lower the domestic consumer credit …

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc., a digital-asset company that supports the Bitcoin ecosystem, is teaming up with Brink Technology to raise $1 million to support Bitcoin Core developers that maintain the Bitcoin protocol. Brink Technology works to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol and network. The Bitcoin protocol enables Bitcoin to function as …

Presto Automation Inc., a provider of voice ordering and other payments technology for drive-through restaurants, reported March-quarter revenue of $6.6 million, down 12% year-over-year. The company says it swung to a net loss of $15.7 million, compared to a gain last year of $9 million, owing to a change in the fair …

Galileo Financial Technologies LLC has reached an agreement with Amazon.com to make its platform available to buyers on Amazon’s AWS Marketplace. AWS marketplace is a digital catalog that features software listings from independent software vendors. Businesses use it to find software that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), a unit …

Few, if any, business sectors are as hotly competitive these days for payments providers as hospitality, and in particular, restaurants. Major firms from Block Inc.’s Square unit to Toast Inc. to Shift4 Payments Inc. have big stakes in this market. But that hasn’t stopped one other entrant, Lightspeed Commerce Inc., …

Blockchain company Ripple unveiled its Ripple CBDC Platform, technology supporting central banks, governments, and financial institutions in issuing central bank digital currencies. More than 90% of the world’s countries are at some stage of development toward a CBDC, according to the Atlantic Council. Matera, a U.S.-based instant payment and QR code technology …

Cybercrime remains a scourge difficult to tame, according to data from Apple Inc., the Identity Theft Resource Center, and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Apple Inc. late Tuesday revealed it stopped more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions in its app store in 2022. In addition, the technology giant blocked nearly 3.9 …

Sezzle is fine-tuning the buy now, pay later experience with the debut of its Pay-in-2 product. Just as its name suggests, the new product splits transactions into two payments, which can help expand BNPL to new categories, such as grocery, monthly subscriptions, and other high-frequency categories, Sezzle says. Consumers choosing …

A startup fintech called Engage has launched a communication channel allowing customers and merchants to interact via purchase transactions through card networks. In the hotly contested hospitality point-of-sale market, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. launched the newest version of its Lightspeed Restaurant set of technologies, which is immediately available in the U.S. market. Security firm Sophos said it …