With the expected introduction by the Federal Reserve next year of a commercial real-time payments platform for the United States, total instant payments in the U.S. market will rise nearly five-fold, to 8.9 billion, by 2026. That’s up from 1.8 billion last year. The dollar volume on these transactions will …

Apple Inc. is switching its network affiliation for its Apple Pay Cash virtual debit card to Visa Inc. after more than four years of issuing the card on the Discover Network. Information about the rationale for the move was not immediately available as the news emerged late last week on …

American Express Co. reported a strong first quarter early Friday that betokens a return to pre-pandemic performance for the company, though it also confronts questions stemming from emerging inflation and the threat of recession. AmEx reported overall spending in its crucial travel-and-entertainment business in March reached 99% of the total …

The competition to bring digital-payments capability to sports arenas is getting hotter. FIS Inc. announced early Thursday its Worldpay unit is exclusively processing payments for tickets, concessions, and merchandise at Washington D.C.’s Nationals Park, home of the city’s Nationals Major League Baseball team. As part of the deal, Jacksonville, Fla.-based …

The hospitality industry continues to heat up as a market for digital-payments processing and technology, attracting established players and startups alike. Early Tuesday, GoTab Inc. said it is working with business-software firm PaySuite to sell its services to restaurants in the Pacific Northwest.  The first installation is a food hall …

One of the country’s biggest merchant associations on Monday joined a growing chorus of voices arguing fee increases planned by the major card networks for this month will exacerbate inflation. “American consumers are struggling under the worst inflation in four decades, and these increases would only make the situation worse,” …

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, said Kim Ford, senior vice president of government relations at Fiserv Inc. …

Customer checkout, whether online or at a store, can be taken for granted by merchants and payments firms alike. That’s a big mistake, according to a panel of experts who spoke Wednesday about new opportunities—and threats—lurking in checkout buttons.  For one thing, checkouts can represent a battleground in which players …

It’s a well-known fact that the pandemic drove consumers to e-commerce for goods they might otherwise have shopped for in stores, but now evidence is emerging that some of that increase in online spending is a result of steadily rising inflation. Consumers spent $83.1 billion online last month, up 7% …

The buy now, pay later trend may have come under scrutiny lately by regulators, but companies enabling BNPL warn sellers and payments providers risk losing merchant volume and younger consumers if they don’t offer the installment option online and at the point of sale. “You’ll see volume attrition without merchant …