Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Block Inc.’s Square unit late Thursday unveiled a suite of hardware and software tools the company says is aimed at helping restaurants manage orders, payments, and their overall business more efficiently as they wrestle with worker shortages and other fallout from the pandemic. The new technology also comes as competition …

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Central bank digital currencies are still a relatively new payment method around the world, but now they’re starting to address the issue of user authentication, and at least one is doing it with facial-recognition technology. PopID Inc. on Thursday announced holders of the Bahamian Sand Dollar, one of the first …

When it comes to shopping, it’s becoming a mobile world. A report released on Thursday by omnichannel-platform provider NewStore Inc. reveals that 88% of consumers surveyed have at least one shopping app on their phone, 50% of respondents have more than four shopping apps, and 9% have more than 10. …

SpotOn, a payments-technology provider serving restaurants and retailers, raised $300 million in a Series F funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group LLC. The round, which comes just eight months after a Series E funding, values the company at $3.6 billion.Sphere, a healthcare payments and security software company, launched a …

Criminals are cashing in on cybercrime in a big way. A new report from Arkose Labs reveals that experienced or “master” fraudsters can pull down up to $7.2 million annually and that rookie fraudsters can earn as much as $20,000 per month with an investment of as little as $5 …

Mastercard Inc. says the future of payments at the point of sale includes the ability to make a point-of-sale payment using a facial image without having to present a credit or debit card or a mobile device. Under its new Biometric Checkout Program, Mastercard has begun testing the service, the …

Technology firm Orduo has launched a white-label online ordering system for restaurants. The product is aimed at independent sales organizations and value-added resellers.NCR Corp. said its NCR Aloha Cloud point-of-sale system has a refreshed user interface, a small handheld device, and next-day funding of deposits.Routable, a business-payments platform aimed at mass payouts, launched …

Looking to add a new twist on buy now, pay later loans, provider Splitit Payments Ltd. Tuesday announced a new BNPL-style loan that will leverage a consumer’s open-to-buy on their payment cards to pre-qualify them for an installment loan at the point-of-sale. To qualify for the loan, merchants run a pre-authorization …

With some fast and near-instant payments services and apps already available, and more coming, it turns out fear of fraud, reluctance to manage multiple apps, and ignorance about the services are consumers’ biggest hurdles to adoption. Approximately 40% of U.S. consumers are wary of using faster-payments options overall, according to …

Square announced its Afterpay buy now, pay later service is available to in-person point-of-sale merchants in the United States and Australia who use Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, Square Appointments, or Square for Restaurants. In the first quarter, Square, a unit of Block Inc., said the average transaction size with Afterpay …

Paysafe Ltd. continues to immerse itself in the online-gaming industry, announcing Monday a partnership with Strive Gaming, a player-account management platform designed to meet multi-state iGaming requirements in North America. With an integration of Paysafe’s payments technology into Strive Gaming’s PAM platform, Strive’s clients will enable gamers to deposit funds into …

As the U.S. economy moves farther from the worst of the Covid pandemic, credit and debit card spending may be stabilizing, according to new data from The Strawhecker Group, a payments advisory and research firm. Released as part of the AIM Headline Report series, the Growth & Inflation Analysis 2022 …

Toast Inc., a payments-technology provider specializing in restaurants, said it has renewed its collaboration with US Foods, a distributor serving approximately 250,000 U.S. restaurants and foodservice operators.Investment firm Thoma Bravo has closed on its $2.6-billion acquisition of business-to-business payments provider Bottomline Technologies Inc. The deal was announced in December and approved by …

Corporations aren’t in business to please Wall Street, but for publicly held companies investor expectations are hard to ignore. Affirm Inc. early Friday is seeing its share price climb steadily after exceeding analysts’ consensus expectations for payment volume and revenue for its fiscal third quarter, ended March 31. The good …

Aiming to help developers address friction at checkout, Block Inc.’s Square unit late Thursday announced several new tools for its Square payments platform. The announcement was made at Square Unboxed, Block’s annual developer and partner conference. The centerpiece of the new tools is Cash App Pay for Developers, which enables …

Kickfin, a tip disbursement provider, said its tie-in with Visa Direct, the card brand’s push payment service, will enable its clients to send cashless tip payouts directly to employees’ existing bank accounts via eligible debit cards.Buy now, pay later provider Affirm Inc. announced a multi-year extension of its agreement to provide installment-payment …

In a nod to consumers’ preference to have all the contents of a physical wallet digitized—including driver’s licenses and vaccine cards, in addition to payment cards—Alphabet Inc.’s Google subsidiary has introduced a new Google Wallet. The new wallet, which Google plans to make available in more than 40 countries, is …

In the latest buy now, pay later updates, Klarna AB introduced Virtual Shopping, an online service that connects shoppers with in-store experts, and Splitit Payments Ltd. joined the Visa Ready for BNPL program. Stockholm-based Klarna says its Virtual Shopping service enables consumers to browse and buy online while connecting via live chats …

Payments provider Checkout.com has agreed to acquire ubble, a provider of identity-verification technology, in a transaction set to close later this year. Terms were not disclosed.The March 18 increase in the same-day limit to $1 million helped lift same-day ACH volume in the first quarter to $290.3 billion, up 53.3% year-over-year, Nacha said. Transactions …