Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A company called AmazeWallet over the weekend said it will soon launch a so-called super app that will let users run blockchain technology on a mobile phone. The app will run such functions as mining tokens, exchanging cryptocurrency, and sending encrypted messages, the London-based company noted. AmazeWallet said it has …

Card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. closed on its acquisition of Power Finance Inc., a credit card management service. The $275-million deal was announced Jan. 30. U.S. semiconductor maker MKS Instruments Inc. reported it is investigating a ransomware attack that happened last week, according to Reuters. The company said it is temporarily suspending operations at some its plants. A group …

Clickatell, a U.S. provider of mobile commerce and messaging solutions, announced late Thursday it is partnering with South Africa-based airline FlySafair to enable the airline’s customers to pay for checked luggage using the WhatsApp messaging channel. To make a payment, the airline’s customers access the WhatsApp channel on their mobile …

With sports betting and casino gambling steadily gaining prominence as a payments market, payment processors are increasingly jumping on the opportunities the market presents. In the latest development, gaming-payments specialist Sightline Payments said it will offer its Play+ card, which has attracted 1.5 million users so far, as a Visa-branded …

Amazon.com Inc. reported net sales of $514 billion for 2022, up 9% over 2021, excluding an impact from changes in foreign-exchange rates. Sales in the North American market grew 13% over 2021, to $315.9 billion. The company recorded an operating loss of $2.8 billion in North America, swinging from a positive …

Merchant satisfaction with payment processors has dwindled in the past year, as sellers cope with the impact of inflation on their processing costs as well as on their business in general, according to J.D. Power’s 2023 U.S. Merchant Services Satisfaction Study. The merchant satisfaction score for merchant-services providers totaled 853, …

Contactless payments have taken off in the United States and other markets in recent years, but now a piece of malware has emerged that can block wave-and-pay or tap-to-pay transactions and force users to insert their cards in a terminal instead, according to a new report by the Moscow-based global …

Citizens Financial Group Inc. has launched the Zelle peer-to-peer payments service for the bank’s small-business customers. U.S.-based Clickatell said it has deployed its Chat 2 Pay service with a pay-by-link capability for FlySafair, a South African airline for mobile payments via’s FlySafair’s WhatsApp channel. Payments provider Lightspeed Commerce Inc. announced it processed $22.4 billion in volume for …

Observers have warned that an activist Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to act on multiple fronts that involve the payments industry. Early Wednesday it released its latest proposal, a move to cut the $12 billion it estimates consumers pay annually in credit card late fees. While the proposal could …

P97 Networks, a provider of cloud-based mobile-commerce technology to convenience stores, gas stations, and the automotive industry, is teaming with Visa Inc. to deploy Visa’s token technology as a way to reduce friction with in-car payments, as well as create new customer experiences for mobile-wallet users. P97 will use Visa’s …

Point-of-sale technology provider Ingenico is working with buy now, pay later specialist Splitit to offer BNPL at the physical checkout using Ingenico’s payments-platform-as-a-service technology. Block Inc.’s Afterpay buy now, pay later service said it will enable access for users to New York Fashion Week beginning Feb. 11 and running for four days. Afterpay is …

Block Inc.’s Cash App unit says it is attempting to make it easier for consumers to salt away money with the introduction of Cash App Savings. The new feature allows Cash App users to deposit savings into a separate account within the app, build additional savings by rounding up their …

Elon Musk helped found what became PayPal back at the turn of the century, and now it appears he is moving on an ambition he outlined months ago to add a payments feature to Twitter, the social-media platform he paid $44 billion to acquire in October. The San Francisco-based company …

Banking and payments professionals should watch for action from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on key areas such as open banking, credit card late fees, fintech partnerships, and buy now, pay later plans, warns Strategic Resource Management, a consulting firm. American Express Co. released its American Express Business Blueprint, a digital cash flow management service …

E-commerce transactions for the 2022 holiday-shopping season bested predictions for growth, despite signs of a weakening economy, according to research from ACI Worldwide Inc. From October through December, online transactions increased 21% from the same period in 2021, besting pre-holiday shopping- growth estimates by six percentage points, says ACI. In …

The U.S. Department of Justice wants more information from Visa Inc. on its U.S. debit practices, a continuation of an investigation originally started in 2021. Visa disclosed the request in a Jan. 27 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing and said the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division made the request on …

Gr4vy Inc., a payments-technology provider, has integrated network-tokenization services from Giesecke+Devrient GmbH into its platform in a move expected to improve authorization rates and cut transaction costs. Owlin, an artificial-intelligence technology developer, launched Owlin for KYC, said to be one platform to screen merchants and to ease onboarding, monitoring, and …

American Express Co., whose travel-and-entertainment focus took a beating during the pandemic and is now rebounding, reported strong growth early Friday for its latest quarter, but left at least some equity analysts questioning whether the growth is strong enough. Analysts zeroed in on revenue growth and card-acquisition rates, in particular, …

Following years of pandemic restrictions that all card companies had to contend with, Visa Inc.’s top executives late Thursday highlighted stable transaction and processing volumes and growing cross-border travel as the United States and other global regions continued to recover. The event also featured an appearance by Visa president Ryan …

POSaBIT Systems Corp., a point-of-sale system maker for the cannabis industry, said it will acquire MJ Platform, Leaf Data Systems, and Ample Organics from Akerna Corp. for $4 million in an all-cash transaction. The deal will almost double the number of locations serviced by POSaBIT and expands its operations in Canada. …