One week into the new year, Bitcoin’s dizzying rise is prompting questions about what’s fueling it and how long it can go on before yet another crash. One factor, as it turns out, could be greater clarity concerning Bitcoin’s potential to enter the mainstream of retail payments after a dozen …

The pandemic has in a few months’ time brought changes to the payments business that otherwise might have taken years—even in mundane environments like parking. One big development emerged Thursday with the announcement that TIBA Parking Systems, which manages access to more than 1.9 million parking spaces in the United …

An executive order by President Donald Trump banning a pair of major Chinese payments apps comes in the waning days of his administration and may leave more questions than it answers, observers say. The order, issued Tuesday, prohibits transactions on eight China-based apps, including the hugely popular Alipay and WeChat …

With a second round of federal stimulus payments having passed Congress, payments firms are lining up to help recipients speed the funds’ availability. PayPal Holdings Inc., for example, said late Tuesday it will waive the fees for stimulus recipients that it normally charges consumers to cash checks using its app. …

The confluence of digital payments and economic hardship during the Covid-19 pandemic has led another major supermarket chain to offer SNAP EBT acceptance through its mobile app and on its Web site for curbside pickup and home-delivery orders. H-E-B, with 329 stores in Texas and another 55 in Mexico, said …

Mega-merger fever hasn’t subsided in the payments industry. A combination of FIS Inc. and Global Payments Inc., which have reportedly broken off talks to merge in a deal that could be valued at $70 billion, would represent a continued push for yet more economies of scale in a business whose …

An integration between online delivery service Instacart and grocery chain Aldi that lets customers use government benefits to order grocery deliveries has seen fast expansion since the program launched in October. Almost 1,000 Aldi stores in 23 states plus the District of Columbia have been added to the program in recent …

Household bill payments now total $2.75 trillion per year in the United States, accounting for 21% of all spending by U.S. consumers, according to a report released Thursday by doxo Inc., a provider of digital billing and payment services. The Seattle-based company’s research looks at bill payments via bank accounts …

GoDaddy Inc.’s agreement to buy Poynt Co., announced late Tuesday, will broaden GoDaddy’s focus into payment services for online merchants and could make the Web-services company a key player in merchant acquiring, observers and company executives say. The deal, in which GoDaddy has agreed to pay $320 million in cash …

The recent ranswomware attack on the big payments processor TSYS could portend worse to come for the payments business as cyber criminals seek vulnerabilities in the industry and carry out new tactics to squeeze out ransom payments from their victims. More attacks on credit and debit processors are “absolutely” coming, …