Credit Cards

The Fed has amassed enormous—in practice, unaccountable—power, and taken roles natural to government and to the private sector. It’s the central bank, paramount financial-system regulator, and a payments operator. It shouldn’t, however, undertake activities better and naturally performed in the private sphere.  The latest example: On its own prerogative, the …

Fiserv Inc.’s acquisition of First Data Corp. this year was the first of a trio of big mergers that has made 2019 the year of the megadeals in payments. On Thursday, a key Fiserv executive close to the action explained how the $22-billion acquisition served as the capstone to a …

American Express Co. posted an online guide for consumers about contactless cards. Beginning in July of 2019, all newly issued AmEx consumer and small-business cards are contactless-enabled, and starting next month all newly issued corporate cards will be contactless-enabled.P97 Networks, a provider of mobile payments and rewards programs for petroleum retailers, …

Merchant processor Square Inc. on Nov. 1 will drop its longstanding 2.75% point-of-sale rate for a new pricing plan of 2.6% plus 10 cents. Based on recent U.S. purchase dollar- and transaction-volume statistics from the bank card networks, Digital Transactions News calculates the new pricing plan will generate about 1% …

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority fined PayPal Holdings Inc. £250,000 ($309,700) in connection with PayPal’s $2.2 billion acquisition of Sweden-based processor iZettle AB last year; the regulator said PayPal violated an order not to integrate its U.K. business with iZettle during an investigation by cross-selling services to U.K. consumers. PayPal said it …

A new analysis says insurance companies are particularly vulnerable to e-commerce fraud, and a recent report says a second round of data breaches has occurred at cities that use the Click2Gov application for payment of utility bills, parking tickets, and related municipal payments. It’s practically an iron law that as …

P97 Networks, a mobile-payments and content provider for gas pumps, partnered with WannLynx, which supports in-store and at-the-pump video and other content for fueling stations, to enable payments as well as discounts, coupons, and other loyalty programs for convenience stores and gas stations.Brex, a startup that creates corporate card programs …

The clamor to sign up merchants that want to sell hemp-derived cannabidiol products is undiminished despite multiple questions about what a legal CBD product is and how to onboard these merchants. “The banks are having a tough time now because it’s so new,” said Travis Chrisman, president and cofounder of …

Familiar now as a point-of-sale payment option, transactional credit is moving into the much larger—and more complicated—world of business-to-business payments. Splitit Payments Ltd. announced on Monday it has launched a service that allows merchants and other small businesses to pay suppliers with regular, interest-free installments on an existing business credit …

A survey by processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) found that 54 countries now have active real-time payment programs, up from 40 in 2018 and nearly four times as many as 2014.Cross River Bank, which specializes in services for technology companies, has applied to link to The Clearing House Payments Co.’s Real Time …