What’s the future of shopping going to be like? If consumers have their way, it will be more personalized and convenient, found the “Future of Shopping” report from Synchrony. And online retailer Newegg Commerce Inc. is incorporating artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT into its shopping protocols. With increased sophistication in personalization, …
Read More »Familiar Names Grace the Upper Reaches of the Latest Strawhecker Merchant Acquirer Directory
No surprise, the top merchant acquirer by payment volume remains JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to the 2023 edition of Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers from TSG, formerly known as The Strawhecker Group. With volume of $2.15 trillion, Chase retained the top spot last year that it has held since …
Read More »Mastercard Snaps up Baffin Bay Networks for a Cybersecurity Boost
Mastercard Inc. is adding another arrow of digital-security technology in its cybersecurity quiver with the acquisition of Baffin Bay Networks, a Sweden-based cybersecurity company. Payments companies constantly need advanced ways to counter fraud because criminals are relentless. In fact, credit card fraud accounted for 6.2% of digital fraud in 2020, …
Read More »Merchant Monitoring Is the Crux of a New Infinicept and LegitScript Deal
With merchant risk being as important for payment facilitators as it is with traditional merchant-services companies, Infinicept, which provides embedded payment services, and LegitScript, a merchant-monitoring service, are collaborating on a new service to provide merchant-monitoring capabilities. Announced Wednesday, the service will enable payfacs, independent sales organizations, and merchant acquirers …
Read More »Mercedes Adds Biometric Payments to Five Models, Turning the Car into a Payment Device
Mercedes-Benz’s new Mercedes pay+ in-car payment service is coming to five models manufactured by the Germany-based luxury-car maker. Though earlier efforts from a variety of car makers put in-car payments on the road, Mercedes-Benz is the first, with its Mercedes pay+ technology, to use Visa Inc.’s Delegated Authentication and Cloud …
Read More »Will Visa Follow Through on Lowering Its Credit Card Surcharge Cap in April?
Visa Inc. may be readying a lower cap on credit card surcharges—moving from 4% to 3%—in April, but there’s no guarantee it will happen then. While a bulletin sent to large acquirers says the change to the brand rules will go into effect April 15, its implementation could be delayed, …
Read More »Eye on Payment Tech: Repay’s Volume Rises 25%; CardFlight’s Merchant Base Swells to 125,000
Payment technology provider Repay Holdings Inc. has high hopes in 2023 for two new business segments—Consumer Payments and Business Payments—as its posts $6.6 billion in processed card volume for 2022. In related news, CardFlight, developer of SwipeSimple, a mobile point-of-sale service, hits a record merchant count of 125,000. Repay’s plans …
Read More »Co-op Solutions Debuts a Debit Network for Credit Unions
Credit unions wanting another option among debit card networks have a new choice with the launch of Co-op Solutions’ Co-op Pay Network. Announced Monday, the network is open to all credit unions, regardless of their debit-processing relationships. The new network, which works with regular point-of-sale transactions, PINless transactions, mobile wallets, …
Read More »U.S. Consumers Now Loom Large for Sweden’s Klarna
The United States has become buy now, pay later provider Klarna AB’s largest market by revenue, the company announced Tuesday. BNPL use blossomed during the pandemic and continues to find favor as inflation concerns push consumers to make value-based spending decisions. With 8 million monthly active users of the Klarna …
Read More »U.K. Regulators Are Mulling BNPL Legislation
Two years after announcing United Kingdom lawmakers would regulate buy now, pay later services, HM Treasury, the British government’s financial arm, has begun its consultation process. As reported in The Guardian, the process will take eight weeks and will outline the rules that BNPL providers will have to follow. Klarna …
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