Before being upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment choices U.S. consumers made were fairly stable. The biggest changes from 2018 to 2019 were an upswing in online bill payments and continued slippage in cash usage, according to new findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Based on a …

A new rule requiring all financial institutions in the automated clearing house network to participate in ACH governing body Nacha’s contact registry took effect Wednesday. The registry’s purpose is to enable financial institutions to quickly find the appropriate person to resolve issues when a transaction looks fraudulent or presents other …

A new European Commission report shows how interchange regulation has lowered merchants’ payment card acceptance costs and taken more than $3 billion a year from card issuers’ top lines. The EC, the executive arm of the Brussels-based European Union, implemented its so-called Interchange Fee Regulation in 2015 and 2016. The …

The new regime at unattended-payments provider USA Technologies Inc. is now in place after a proxy fight that deposed the old management team and board of directors, and it’s looking for growth from underexploited opportunities and cost-cutting. “With the uncertainties of the proxy contest now behind us combined with a …

Facing criticism for withholding as much as 30% of some small merchants’ payment volume, merchant processor and business software provider Square Inc. on Tuesday posted an explanation of its new reserve policy. “Out of our millions of sellers, fewer than 0.3% have reserves on their accounts, but given increased interest, …

Splitit Payments Ltd. announced Thursday that it had signed a multiyear agreement with Mastercard Inc. intended to accelerate adoption of its installment-payment service for online merchants. The distribution agreement opens the possibility of Mastercard-accepting merchants offering Splitit as a financing option to their customers. New York City-based Splitit also has …

Store card provider Synchrony Financial on Wednesday launched a program that offers small businesses grants through community organizations and includes access to digital payment tools and consulting services. The initiative comes as many small businesses struggle with the economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as closures and damage …

Merchant processor Net Element Inc. has a letter of intent to merge with Mullen Technologies Inc., a privately held startup that plans to sell Chinese-made electric sports cars in the U.S. The pending deal, announced Monday, requires Net Element to divest its payment-processing business. The so-called “reverse triangular merger” is …

Volume in some of its foreign markets is still way down as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but leading non-bank ATM network operator Cardtronics plc reported Monday that same-store U.S. cash-withdrawal transaction volumes were off only 3% in the first half of June from a year earlier.  PSCU, a …

It’s not yet profitable, but Bill.com Holdings Inc. must be doing something Wall Street likes. The processor, which had its initial public offering in December at $22 per share, on Wednesday announced an “upsized” follow-on offering of 7.2 million shares of common stock priced at $74.25 per share.  It was …