July, 2022

• 1 July

  The Crypto Rout

  

  Breathes there a soul out there who yet harbors ambitions for Bitcoin to become a store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange? If so, please step forward and identify yourself—and ignore the snickering. We aren’t yet ready to abandon the hope entirely that digital currencies can function …

June, 2022

• 1 June

  A Cross-Border Comeback

  

  Pummeled for nearly two years by the coronavirus pandemic, payments networks have lately found cause for optimism in a key market: cross-border travel. Hit hard by pandemic restrictions, that business is staging a comeback. Mastercard Inc. reported in mid-April its cross-border volume in March climbed above numbers last seen in …

May, 2022

• 1 May

  ’We Can’t Let Our Guard Down’

  

  Be careful what you wish for. For years, payments processors have contended that state and local lawmakers and regulators would enact better regulations if they were better-informed about how payments work. The good news is that’s now happening. The bad news is that state lawmakers’ understanding of the payments business …

April, 2022

• 1 April

  Responding to the Russian Bear

  

  It was hard last month to view the events in Ukraine with an attitude of studied detachment—the attitude, after all, that we business journalists practice when examining industry news. We are so bound up in that tradition of objectivity, in fact, that it surprises us when a momentous event shakes …

March, 2022

• 1 March

  Guess Who’s Growing Fast

  

  The pandemic has speeded adoption of the automated clearing house network for business-to-business payments, while transactions cleared and settled through the network on the same day they’re initiated are booming, according to full-year 2021 numbers released early last month by Nacha, the governing body for the nationwide network. We’ve written …

February, 2022

• 1 February

  Amazon, Visa, And the Rate Wars

  

  Will the conflict between merchants and the card networks over acceptance fees ever find resolution? The argument, which has been in progress for years, may never find total resolution, but perhaps the parties can agree on some accommodations. Amazon.com Inc.’s decision last month to pull back from its threat to …

January, 2022

• 1 January

  Regulate Now, Pay Later

  

  The pandemic has lent momentum to a number of trends in digital payments, but one of the biggest is the buy now, pay later option. The installment plan isn’t new, but providers have offered it as a way of giving merchants another payment channel as Covid-wary consumers crowded online. With …

December, 2021

• 1 December

  Searching for Stability

  

  Have you used Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency lately? Or have you used one at all? If you did, was it worth the same at the time of the transaction as it was when you obtained it? Chances are, its value had fluctuated, maybe by a very wide margin. Bitcoin, …

November, 2021

• 1 November

  A Ray of Light?

  

  The past 20 months have been difficult, to say the least, and the virus behind all the headline misery is still with us. And that’s without accounting for Delta and other variants of this plague. One of the most frustrating logistical problems created by Covid has been the shortages of …

October, 2021

• 1 October

  Whither BNPL?

  

  It takes nothing away from the phenomenal arc the buy now, pay later trend is describing across the payments landscape to say that, in essence, it’s something quite old dressed up in modern duds. After all, installment credit in retail has been around for decades. But the genius of the …