Sunday , February 15, 2026

Peter Lucas

As Covid Fears Wane, Consumers And Retailers Are Using Curbside Pickup Less

While holiday sales are off to a strong start, consumers are making less use of curbside pickup, a service that rapidly gained momentum at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Curbside pickup accounted for 13% of online orders on Thanksgiving day and Black Friday among retailers that offer the service, …

Read More »

Deep Discounts Helped Drive Strong Cyber Monday Sales

Consumer spending on Cyber Monday met expectations, with consumers spending $11.3 billion, up 5.8% from a year earlier, according to the latest Adobe Analytics figures. The spending spree was so strong that during the peak shopping hours of 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, consumers spent $12.8 million …

Read More »

Holiday Traffic Is off to a Strong Start Despite Inflationary Pressures

Despite consumer concerns over higher prices caused by inflation, spending for the holiday shopping season got off to a strong start over the weekend. Total retail sales in the United States, including in-store and e-commerce transactions but excluding the automotive sector, were up more than 12% on Black Friday from …

Read More »

Eye on Crypto: WooCommerce Partners With DePay; Airswift Launches a Payment Gateway

E-commerce platform provider WooCommerce is partnering with DePay, a decentralized-payment processor, to enable its sellers to accept cryptocurrency directly to a crypto wallet for immediate settlement. Intermediaries that credit the merchant’s account after processing a crypto transaction would be eliminated. DePay supports tens of thousands of cryptocurrency tokens and their …

Read More »

Payment Processor And Lender Newtek Gets the Fed’s Blessing To Be a Bank Holding Company

Newtek Business Services Corp., a small-business lender and payment processor, has received approval from the Federal Reserve to become a bank-holding company and financial-holding company through its acquisition of National Bank of New York City. Newtek entered into an agreement to acquire the bank in August 2021. Approval of the …

Read More »

Plaid Rolls Out Signal to Unlock Instant ACH Transactions And Attack Return Risk

Looking to speed payments through the automated clearing house while reducing risk, Plaid Inc. announced late Thursday the rollout of Signal, a machine-learning risk engine. Plaid has been piloting Signal for more than a year with select customers that generate high ACH volumes. To accelerate ACH transactions and make them …

Read More »

Visa Uses the FIFA World Cup to Show off Its Latest Payments Technology

Visa Inc. is leveraging its sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup to showcase several payments technologies, including contactless payments, facial recognition, and digital card issuance. Visa is deploying 5,300 contactless-enabled payment terminals at official FIFA venues and enabling taxis in Doha, Qatar, capital of the host country, to accept contactless …

Read More »

Google Wallet Expands Its Reach Across Countries And Devices

Months after the introduction of Google Wallet, Alphabet Inc. announced late Tuesday it is expanding the availability of the digital wallet to 12 more countries, bringing the total number of countries where the wallet is available to 57. Users will now also be able to make the wallet available on …

Read More »

Eye on Processors: Shift4 Expands Its Casino Portfolio; Paysafe Builds Out Ties With Microsoft

Shift4 Payments Inc. has expanded its merchant-gaming portfolio by striking a deal with the Chickasaw Nation to process payments across all of its tribal-owned casino and non-casino locations, as well as third-party venues, such as valet services or restaurants operated by third parties within Chickasaw-owned casinos. The Chickasaw nation, the …

Read More »

AmEx Partners With TikTok To Drive Sales At Small Businesses

American Express Co. is working with the popular social-media platform TikTok to launch the #ShopSmall Accelerator, a program intended to help small-business owners reach a new generation of shoppers on Small Business Saturday, Nov. 26, and throughout the rest of the holiday-shopping season. The deal will provide business owners with …

Read More »
Digital Transactions