Competitive Strategies

The transaction-cost savings and tender steering provided for in the big interchange settlement reached earlier this week will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually for major merchants and the big mobile-wallet providers, according to estimates provided to Digital Transactions News by San Carlos, Calif.-based payments researcher Crone Consulting. …

In the heart of America’s bustling commerce, a subtle yet powerful revolution is unfolding, driven by small merchants. The strategies of offering discounts for cash payments and imposing surcharges for card transactions are at the forefront of this change. These practices, rapidly gaining traction across communities, directly challenge the entrenched …

Usio Inc. pulled off a 19% increase in revenues and reduced its losses last year despite a 26% drop in total payment volume processed, according to a new financial filing from the merchant processor. San Antonio, Texas-based Usio provides payment-facilitator services, credit card processing, automated clearing house payments, prepaid card …

Opening the door to online commerce is an expedient and profitable way to reach consumers, but those with fraud on their minds also find a way in. Now, it is becoming tougher to distinguish those with good intent from the ones with bad intent, especially when formerly good customers start …

Michael Rhodes has resigned as chief executive and president of Discover Financial Services Inc., effective April 1. Rhodes was “not expected to have a long-term role at the combined company after completion of the Company’s merger with Capital One Financial Corporation,” Discover said in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and …

Fraud is nothing if not a persistent part of the payments landscape. It became more so in the past 12 months, as 60% of e-commerce merchants and 53% of retailers sustained increases in overall fraud levels, finds LexisNexis Risk Solutions in the 14th edition of its “LexisNexis True Cost of …

Visa Inc. announced three technologies leveraging artificial intelligence and aimed at controlling fraud risk, including Visa Deep Authorization, real-time account-to-account payment protection, and extension of Visa Advanced Authorization and Visa Risk Manager to non-Visa card transactions. The services are expected to launch by mid-year. Cantaloupe Inc., a specialist in payments for …

Grocery-ordering and -delivery provider Instacart says Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc., a food wholesaler, expanded its partnership to include e-commerce and same-day delivery services to grocers that belong to the cooperative. The broader deal also includes access to Caper Carts, Instacart’s artificial intelligence-enhanced smart shopping carts. More than 800 AWG grocers …

Less than a year after going public, Bitcoin ATM network deployer Bitcoin Depot Inc. on Monday said it is eyeing substantial growth in 2024. Meanwhile, blockchain technology provider BTCS Inc. swung to a profit in 2023 after a loss in 2022. Recent developments from Atlanta-based Bitcoin Depot include the purchase …

Capital One’s proposed $35.3-billion acquisition of Discover will be a thunderclap for the debit-card, retail-banking, and payment-network markets. The Discover network has long been the number-five U.S. retail-payment network, after Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and PayPal. Since its acquisition of Diners Club from Citi in 2008, Discover has struggled as …