As the veil of the Covid-19 pandemic begins to lift, consumers are beginning to resume some of their daily activities. One is returning to the office. While not all are doing this yet, the expectation is that mass-transit systems will soon see ridership bloom. One indicator is that Visa Inc. …

More evidence emerged that consumers are still increasing their use of contactless payments, over a year since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Contactless transaction counts among the more than 75,000 small businesses in the latest CardFlight Small Business Report grew 426.7% in the week ending May 2 compared to …

North America has emerged as the largest sales-generating region for buy now, pay later provider Afterpay Ltd. In the Australia-based company’s latest financial results, North America sales accounted for A$2.6 billion (US$2 billion) in the third quarter ended March 30. Only Australia and New Zealand approach that volume. Overall, Afterpay said …

More evidence emerges of how consumer spending has changed in the past year. Consumers are using their debit cards more for transactions at hotels and motels within the travel sector, according to the PSCU Payments Index for April. Released Thursday, the index shows that debit card use accounted for 35% …

Cloud-based point-of-sale system provider Toast Inc. has issued updates for its Toast Order & Pay services designed to smooth the ordering and payment aspects. Announced Tuesday, the updates include the ability to gain a pre-authorization against a credit or debit card using the diner’s own device.  Boston-based Toast also made …

Forter Ltd., a specialist in online-fraud prevention, says merchants using the Magento e-commerce platform now have access to its services. Meanwhile, Mastercard Inc. says total U.S. retail sales increased 26.3% in March from March 2020. Online retailers using Adobe Inc.’s Magento platform can use a Magento plugin to ease the …

CardFlight Inc. has struck a deal with processor Global Payments Inc. that will see CardFlight’s SwipeSimple point-of-sale technology added to Global’s indirect sales channels. Atlanta-based Global says adding SwipeSimple to its wholesale product lineup will give its independent sales partners an omnichannel payment option. SwipeSimple supports contactless payments, EMV dipped, …

Podium Corp Inc., a communications and payments provider, is adding card readers to enable face-to-face payments as well as remote payments. Announced Monday, the reader accepts EMV, magnetic stripe, and contactless payments. Podium did not say when the readers will be available or disclose their cost. Podium’s primary payment method …

Buy now, pay later provider Afterpay Ltd. reported its bi-annual Afterpay Day sale, the first to include brick-and-mortar merchants, generated a 35% increase in new active users and sent 6 million referrals to merchants around the world from the company’s Shop Directory.  Eighty-six percent of the transactions made that day, …

As criminals continue to target e-commerce transactions, online retailers are tasked with employing advanced methods to thwart them. Paay LLC, an authentication-services provider, and OpenPath Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based payment-services company, are developing a universal 3-D Secure plugin to help with that. Slated to be available in the second half …