Underscoring the rapid growth of digital payments between individuals, the Zelle Network early Thursday celebrated five years in business with numbers showing it has processed more than 5 billion transactions worth almost $1.5 trillion. In that time, almost 1,700 banks and credit unions have added Zelle to their mobile apps, …
Read More »Eight Embedded-Payments Players Issue a ‘Bill of Rights’ to Bolster Industry Ethics
Eight companies involved in the rapidly expanding industry of weaving payments capability into business software have announced an “Embedded Payments Bill of Rights” to stress ethical practices for the young industry. More companies will join these eight very soon, says Todd Ablowitz, co-chief executive and co-founder of Denver-based Infinicept, one …
Read More »The Digital Dollar Project Launches a ‘Sandbox’ to Explore the Technology for a U.S. CBDC
While the Federal Reserve mulls the concept of a national digital dollar, private-sector actors are working toward the same end. The Digital Dollar Project early Wednesday launched what it calls a Technical Sandbox Program in an effort, it said, to help advance understanding of the technical requirements undergirding a central …
Read More »The Fed Sets a May to July 2023 Window for Its Launch of the FedNow Real-Time Service
The Federal Reserve Board on Monday afternoon narrowed the window for the launch of FedNow, its real-time payment service, to the weeks between May and July of 2023. The announcement, which came in a short address by Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard, is the latest in a series of updates …
Read More »As Hacker Attacks Rise, States Start to Consider Banning Ransom Payments
Online attacks in which criminals seize control of victims’ data are rising, and government agencies are far from immune. That’s now leading states to consider laws prohibiting state agencies from paying ransoms to get the decryption key that would unlock what are often vital files. North Carolina in May and …
Read More »As E-Commerce Soars, Network Tokens Take off
Visa Inc. announced late Wednesday it has now issued more network tokens than there are physical Visa cards, eight years after the launch of the Visa Token Service. With a boom in e-commerce and other digital applications, the service has now issued more than 4 billion tokens, Visa said, almost …
Read More »Contactless Fare Payment Comes to Smaller Towns With Cubic’s Project in Sault Ste. Marie
Systemwide contactless-fare technology, which has been available mainly for mass-transit systems in major cities, is starting to find its way into smaller towns. Cubic Corp. on Tuesday said it will install its Umo mobility platform in buses serving the Canadian town of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, population 72,000. The system, …
Read More »As Consumers Embrace BNPL, Square Brings It to the U.K. Across All Platforms
Square announced early Tuesday its first integration in the United Kingdom of Clearpay, a buy now, pay later service known as Afterpay outside the U.K. and Europe. Square, the point-of-sale payments unit of San Francisco-based Block Inc., said the latest move is also its first major integration of BNPL in …
Read More »Fed Accounts Are Now Open to Fintechs With a Bank Charter Under New Guidelines
For years, payments fintechs with a bank charter have labored under a requirement that, for money movement, deposit-taking, and other related services, they largely had to work with another federally chartered bank. This week, the nation’s top banking regulator announced an important change to its rules that could sweep away …
Read More »Average ATM Withdrawals Are Bigger, But Transactions Still Lag Pre-Pandemic Levels
ATM traffic worldwide is on the rebound after two years of pandemic, but it will take years for cash withdrawal transactions to return to 2019 levels, according to “Global ATM Markets and Forecasts to 2027,” a report released this week by RBR, a London-based research firm. ATM activity declined in …
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