Despite a persistent shortage of microchips, global shipments of contactless cards hit the 2-billion mark for the first time in 2021, totaling 2.63 billion for the year, according to the Smart Payment Association, a Munich-based trade group.  Propelling the surge was the shipment of an additional 269 million contactless cards …

The drive to achieve mainstream merchant acceptance of cryptocurrency received a boost Thursday as Shopify Inc. and DePay, a Swiss blockchain payments platform, teamed up to enable consumers to send direct payments to Shopify merchants’ wallets.  Shopify will leverage DePay’s blockchain to enable merchants to receive any preferred tokens, with …

In a sign of buy now, pay later’s deepening penetration of digital payments, Affirm Inc. is partnering with payments-technology provider Stripe Inc. to make its Adaptive Checkout application available to Stripe clients in the United States. Launched in 2021, Adaptive Checkout uses Affirm’s decisioning engine to offer consumers personalized bi-weekly …

To expand its iGaming business and revitalize its digital-wallet business, Paysafe Ltd. on Monday announced it is increasing the wagering limit for high-stakes online gamblers using its Skrill USA wallet to fund their iGaming accounts.  The feature is expected to appeal to high rollers who make five- and six-figures wagers. …

Having weathered an industrywide downturn in sales that began during the third quarter of 2021, cannabis-payments processor POSaBIT Systems Corp. late Thursday reported strong first-quarter sales and revenue. Transactions totaled $103 million, a 61% increase from the same period last year, and revenues totaled $6.4 million, up 79%. Same-store sales …

In a move to streamline its payment options for enterprise clients in the United States and Canada, Belgium-based omni-commerce logistics provider Radial Inc. is rolling out Adyen for Platforms, Adyen NV’s end-to-end payment solution for peer-to-peer marketplaces, on-demand services, and crowdfunding platforms.  Adyen for Platforms is aimed at enabling platform …

The wave that lifted sales through e-commerce marketplaces during the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic is losing energy, according to data from Extensiv, a provider of omnichannel fulfillment solutions. Growth in average orders per merchant through Shopify Inc. has decreased 12% year to date, while other marketplaces—including eBay, Etsy, …

As restaurants bounce back from the major blow delivered at the outset of the Covid 19 pandemic, restaurant point-of-sale technology has become a competitive advantage. The trend is evidenced by new applications from several restaurant POS technology providers, announced over the weekend, along with deals they are cutting with third-party …

With open banking fast becoming the backbone of today’s payments landscape, the need for an industry standard to ensure protection of consumer data is moving front and center. In the United States, where no such standard currently exists, the payments industry is at odds over whether the country should adopt …

Block Inc.’s Square unit late Thursday unveiled a suite of hardware and software tools the company says is aimed at helping restaurants manage orders, payments, and their overall business more efficiently as they wrestle with worker shortages and other fallout from the pandemic. The new technology also comes as competition …