Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Digital-currency platform Circle Internet Financial Corp. said it and Concord Acquisition Corp. have agreed to terminate a merger the companies had agreed to in July 2021 and amended in February. Nine-year-old Circle posted its first profit in the third quarter, with net income of $43 million. A 2-year-old U.K.-based e-commerce payments provider called Wamo said …

To counter the rising tide of first-party misuse chargebacks, also known as “friendly fraud,” Chargeback Gurus has introduced ARI, a predictive-analytics engine the company says can identify transactions likely to be disputed by the cardholder, even though the transaction is legitimate. ARI uses artificial intelligence to analyze data gathered from …

Buy now pay later (BNPL) solutions have seen steady growth over the past few years. The lack of regulations and consumer protections have allowed financial institutions to maintain an edge in this product. But for how much longer? BNPL is now threatening the status quo, with 57% of customers saying …

Buy now, pay later provider Splitit Inc. said data from the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events found that the top spending categories on its platform were electronics, fine jewelry, fitness and outdoors, home furnishings, and health and beauty, based on merchant sales volume. Consumers have hidden bill pay costs of …

As e-commerce volume soars during the holiday season, so does the risk of fraud. Between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, 18% of e-commerce transactions originating in the United States were identified as potentially fraudulent, according to a report from TransUnion LLC. On a global basis, 15% …

Thales, a French company known in the payments industry for its digital-identity technology, on Thursday introduced a product that it says will allow visually impaired shoppers to verify the details of a card transaction while standing at the point of sale. The Voice Payment Card, which Thales announced has been …

American Express Co. announced AmEx Business Link, a business-to-business payments ecosystem for network issuing and acquiring clients to offer their business customers. Payments provider Newtek Business Services said it has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to close on its acquisition of the National Bank of New …

While holiday sales are off to a strong start, consumers are making less use of curbside pickup, a service that rapidly gained momentum at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Curbside pickup accounted for 13% of online orders on Thanksgiving day and Black Friday among retailers that offer the service, …

Chargebacks are a problem area for most merchants and airlines are no more immune. So Amadeus, a global distribution company for the travel industry, is launching its Amadeus Chargeback Management program. Announced Wednesday, the new service will provide airlines with an automated and outsourced chargeback-management program. It comes as airlines …

Payments provider Adyen Inc. said Moneybird, a software-as-a-service platform, has agreed to use card-issuing and business-accounts services the payments company has recently released. Prepaid card specialist Blackhawk Network announced its rebates-redemption platform has exceeded 1 billion transactions. Rebates are processed via branded gift or prepaid cards. POSaBIT Systems Corp., a specialist in payments processing …

Consumer spending on Cyber Monday met expectations, with consumers spending $11.3 billion, up 5.8% from a year earlier, according to the latest Adobe Analytics figures. The spending spree was so strong that during the peak shopping hours of 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, consumers spent $12.8 million …

The swift collapse of the major cryptocurrency exchange FTX hasn’t dampened processors’ interest in striking deals to enable crypto transactions for small and mid-size merchants. In the latest news, ACI Worldwide Inc. early Tuesday said it will enable payments in at least 127 digital currencies for e-commerce merchants served by …

OTG Management, which manages airport restaurants, said it is supporting contactless payments and an expansion of Apple Pay and Google Pay acceptance, along with PayPal and Venmo, at two newly opened restaurants at LaGuardia airport. BigCommerce said merchants using its e-commerce sales had a 31% increase year-over-year in gross merchandise value …

Despite consumer concerns over higher prices caused by inflation, spending for the holiday shopping season got off to a strong start over the weekend. Total retail sales in the United States, including in-store and e-commerce transactions but excluding the automotive sector, were up more than 12% on Black Friday from …

An ongoing controversy regarding consumer losses to authorized but fraudulent transfers on the Zelle peer-to-peer platform has stirred at least some of the country’s biggest banks to work out a range of solutions, including wider adoption of scam defense and detection technology, sources tell Digital Transactions News. This development comes …

POSaBIT Systems Corp., a point-of-sale system maker for the cannabis industry, said its system is now available in Vermont, making it the 21st state for the company’s products. Bread Financial Holdings Inc. said its buy now, pay later product is now available to participating Versatile Credit Inc. merchants and their …

A prominent merchant trade group on Thursday began running a TV commercial that uses Visa Inc.’s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup to decry credit card acceptance fees and advocate for a bill backed by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would regulate those costs. The 30-second commercial, which lays heavy …

As businesses grapple with today’s economic uncertainty, many are facing difficult budget and resource constraints. But as company leaders focus on the slowing economy, they must not forget about cybercriminals. Placing fraud prevention on the backburner risks falling behind sophisticated fraudsters, who constantly take advantage of economic uncertainty, and refine …

In the wake of failures by the cryptocurrency lender Celsius and the crypto exchange FTX, MyChargeBack, a transaction-dispute service, warns users to beware of scams involving crypto-recovery promises. FIS Inc. intends to cut “thousands” of jobs, reported Bloomberg.com, in order to cut costs. Balance, a 2-year-old payments platform for business-to-business transactions, announced …

E-commerce platform provider WooCommerce is partnering with DePay, a decentralized-payment processor, to enable its sellers to accept cryptocurrency directly to a crypto wallet for immediate settlement. Intermediaries that credit the merchant’s account after processing a crypto transaction would be eliminated. DePay supports tens of thousands of cryptocurrency tokens and their …