A new report from CardFlight Inc., a point-of-sale technology provider serving more than 60,000 small businesses through its SwipeSimple service, shows merchant activity climbing back to just about where it was in early March when the Covid-19 outbreak began to hit the economy hard. Total sales in the SwipeSimple merchant …

Fiserv Inc. and the former head of an independent sales organization will pay $40.2 million to settle charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission stemming from alleged illegal actions committed by the ISO from 2012 to 2014 while it obtained processing services from First Data Merchant Services, whose parent company …

With its merchant business under pressure because of the coronavirus pandemic, Square Inc. is yet again spying new opportunities for its consumer-facing Cash App, whose core feature is person-to-person payments. This time, Square is rolling out regularly scheduled purchases of Bitcoin and stocks for Cash App users. Square chief executive …

Even though credit card spending is still depressed as a result of the Covid-19 economic downturn, payment card volume trends have now been improving for a month or more, according to new data from credit-union service organization PSCU. St. Petersburg, Fla.-based PSCU reported Monday that overall credit card spending by …

It was a nasty April for Priority Technology Holdings Inc. as the Covid-19 business downturn tightened its grip, but the merchant acquirer is looking to integrated payments and other growth areas to soften the blow. “In the month of April we processed roughly $2.7 billion in volume, which was down …

New network data from Mastercard Inc. show U.S. switched volume is off 6% year-over-year for the week ending May 7 compared with a 26% decline in the week ending April 30. Mastercard on Thursday released two more weeks of network data, for the weeks ending May 7 and April 28, …

The world’s response to Covid-19 already has accelerated trends underway in the payments business, and pandemic-spurred innovations will continue after the contagion eases, according to three senior industry executives. “The impacts of Covid-19 represent a true global reset of the entire market, not just our payments market,” said Philip McHugh, …

Merchant processor Shift4 Payments LLC reported Monday it has seen a big jump in restaurant payments in the past week, and the parent company of independent sales organization Newtek Merchant Solutions says it has approved and funded $700 million in loans to small businesses under the federal government’s Covid-19 relief …

After suffering through a 40% year-over-year decline in payment volume because of the Covid-19 pandemic, merchant processor EVO Payments Inc. says many merchants that went dormant are generating transactions again.  Atlanta-based EVO’s active merchant count declined by about 35% during the worst part of the pandemic-induced business slowdown in mid-April, …

Square Inc.’s seller volume is down and its net loss more than doubled to $106 million in the first quarter. But Square’s Cash App service is thriving during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Square expects its merchant business will more than recover. “We see significant opportunity to bring new sellers and …