Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Despite inflation hitting a 40-year high, consumer spending during the back-to-school season is projected to increase 7.5%, excluding automotive sales, from 2021 levels, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment, not adjusted for inflation.  Department stores are expected to be …

The steep drop in the value of Bitcoin made itself felt Tuesday at Coinbase when the crypto exchange’s boss announced an 18% cut in its workforce. The 10-year-old company had more than 4,900 employees, according to its Web site. That’s about 880 employees affected by the layoff, though some reports …

Payments provider Sionic announced a service that allows consumers to pay merchants at the point of sale via real-time transfers from the consumer’s bank account to the merchant’s bank account. The service includes incentives merchants can use to induce consumers to use the service in preference to rewards credit cards.XTM Inc. announced it …

Signs continue to mount that peer-to-peer payments are being adopted by businesses, and in turn could be encroaching on card payments at the point-of-sale.  A recent survey of 530 small businesses conducted by The Strawhecker Group and titled “P2P Payment: A Disruption To Plastic?” reveals that 82% of small businesses …

Abra, a financial-services company specializing in digital assets, and American Express Co. have announced they will offer a rewards credit card that will let users pay with U.S. dollars but earn rewards in cryptocurrency. The new card, expected to debut late this year, will feature benefits such as Amex Offers, …

Fiserv Inc. said more than 300 sports and entertainment venues are now using Clover Sport to provide payment and marketing services to fans. Clover Sport is based on Fiserv’s Clover point-of-sale technology.MoneyGram International Inc. launched a service that supports money transfers via the Stellar Network’s public blockchain and USD Coin, a stablecoin from Circle Internet …

In a diversification move, business-to-business payments provider Fleetcor Technologies Inc. reported Thursday it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Global Reach Group, a London-based cross-border payments provider. Terms of the deal were not announced, and a Fleetcor spokesperson could not be reached for comment Friday. Atlanta-based Fleetcor expects the …

Circle Internet Financial Ltd. said early Friday it has agreed to acquire Cybavo, a Taiwan-based developer of tools for digital-asset custody and blockchain development. The Boston-based company, perhaps best known as the developer of USD Coin, a stablecoin linked to the U.S. dollar, said the acquisition will provide the technical …

Mastercard Inc. said it is working with seven companies to enable its branded payment cards to be used for making non-fungible token purchases. NFTs are digital goods.Sardine, a provider of anti-fraud and compliance technology to fintechs, said it will work with cryptocurrency-technology provider Zero Hash to enable instant settlement on the …

When Apple Inc. on Monday announced Apple Pay Later, its buy now, pay later program, the computing giant added an unexpected twist. The new program will not rely for financing on Goldman Sachs, Apple’s long-time partner for Apple Pay. Rather, Apple is setting up its own unit, to be called …

With consumers increasingly turning to fintechs to round out their financial services and get access to those services on their terms, the need to partner with providers of open banking platforms is growing rapidly. To facilitate such partnerships, open-banking network MX Technologies Inc. late Wednesday announced the formalization of its …

Online spending in May totaled $78.8 billion, more than $1 billion above April, said Adobe Inc. in its Adobe Digital Price Index.E-commerce platform WooCommerce said it has enhanced its card reader to add the ability for merchants to enter an order in the WooCommerce mobile app and automatically synchronize inventory between in-person and …

While companies have been steadily moving towards digitalized payments, checks remain a large portion of the business-to-business payment ecosystem. To help accelerate the trend away from paper checks and toward digital payments, Fiserv Inc. announced a partnership Wednesday with Checkbook Inc., a push-payments processor, to enable its Carat operating system …

The pandemic sent workers home to work, and online criminals have been quick to take advantage of that mass migration. Phishing attacks are now at a record high, with incidents in the first quarter breaching 1 million for the first time, according to a report released Tuesday by the Anti-Phishing …

EMVCo reported the number of EMV chip cards in circulation globally has grown by 1.1 billion over the past year to a total of 12 billion. Some 68% of all cards issued are now EMV-enabled and 90% of all card-present transactions use EMV chip technology, according to the global standards body.Paysafe …

MagicCube Inc. has chiefly aimed its tap-to-pay technology at small sellers to allow them to take card payments directly on an off-the-shelf mobile device. But on Monday the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company announced a version of its i-Accept platform for enterprise and big-box merchants.  To make i-Accept more attractive to …

Total credit and debit card dollar volume for Bank of America Corp. increased 9% in May year-over-year, with credit card volume up 16% and debit volume up 9%, the Bank of America Institute reported.A research report from Aite-Novarica finds what the report calls “excessively high rates” of identity theft, which the report says …

Apple Inc.’s sneak peek at its iOS16 operating system on Monday included the news that the new version will include Apple’s widely expected entry in the hot buy now, pay later market. Available in the U.S. market, Apple Pay Later will be accepted at all places that take Apple Pay …

High usage rates and increasing adoption by small businesses are the primary factors that have led Interac, Canada’s national debit and account-to-account payment network, to hit a record 1 billion transactions for the 12-month period ended April 30, a 16% increase from the same period a year earlier. A recent …

Payments-as-a-service and other “as-a-service” technologies have emerged in recent years to package the technology and expertise needed for fintechs to expand their reach and expertise in payments. Now acquiring-as-a-service is stepping onto center stage with news that Fiserv Inc. has agreed to support payments for merchants using Trust Payments Ltd. …