Sunday , March 23, 2025

Debit Cards

How Fintechs Are Helping Reduce Financial-Services ‘Deserts’ for the Underbanked

Thanks to the proliferation of such financial-service technologies as mobile wallets and peer-to-peer and e-cash payments, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, financial-technology providers are closing the gap on unbanked and underbanked consumers’ access to financial services, according to a report from the Electronic Transactions Association. One example cited in the …

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Why Buy Now, Pay Later Is Taking off—And Sparking a Reaction From Incumbent Players

The fast-growing buy now, pay later (BNPL) installment-credit option for online and in-store payments could reach $1 trillion in U.S. volume by 2025, or between 10 and 15 times the current level, according to a report released Tuesday by CBInsights, a New York City-based financial-service research firm. A confluence of several …

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Interchange Adjustments Will Add a Net $889 Million to Merchants’ Costs, an Analysis Says

With the two big payment networks set to raise by hundreds of millions of dollars the cost U.S. merchants pay for card acceptance, e-commerce merchants could see fee boosts while some segments—like travel-and-entertainment and low-ticket-value, quick-service merchants—could see some reductions.  In total, rate tweaks scheduled by Visa Inc. and Mastercard …

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Klarna Raises $1 Billion and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 3/1/21

Buy now, pay later specialist Klarna AB raised $1 billion in an oversubscribed equity funding round that pegged the company’s valuation at $31 billion. Major U.S. clients include Macys, Etsy, Sephora, Ralph Lauren, and Urban Outfitters.In related news, BNPL provider Splitit Payments Ltd. announced its merchant sales volume increased almost 180% in 2020 to …

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CardX Wins Its Kansas Surcharging Suit. Surcharging Bans Remain in Only Three States

CardX LLC, a surcharging-services provider, can now add another state to the list of places where it can do business. A federal judge ruled Thursday surcharging cannot be prohibited in Kansas. The decision leaves just Colorado, Massachusetts, and Connecticut with outright no-surcharge rules on the books. Filed May 29, 2020, …

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Mastercard Switched Transactions Volume Dips 1% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/26/21

Switched transactions dipped 1% for the week ended Feb. 21 for Mastercard Inc. compared to the same week last year, the card network reported. It is the first weekly year-over-year dip in switched transactions for Mastercard so far this year and reflects a swing from 4% growth in the week ended Feb. …

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Why PCI Is Refreshing Its Software Lifecycle Standard—And Retiring PA-DSS

The growing number of attacks targeting third-party developers’ payment applications, as well as the third-party applications into which the payments capabilities are integrated, is the impetus behind the PCI Security Standards Council’s decision to update the PCI Secure Software Lifecycle standard. Introduced this month, PCI Secure SLC Standard v1.1 is …

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Clearent in Merger Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/25/21

Payments provider Clearent LLC and Transaction Services Group, a New Zealand-based software and integrated payments provider, will merge and form Xplor Technologies, TSG announced. Terms were not disclosed. Both companies are part of investor Advent International’s portfolio. The combined company will serve more than 82,000 businesses that processed more than $27 billion …

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Mobile Wallets Find In-Store Favor and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/24/21

In 2020, mobile-wallet usage exceeded that of cash for in-store payments for the first time, according to the annual Global Payments Report by Worldpay from FIS. The report, which canvassed 46,000 consumers worldwide, found cash usage fell 10 percentage points to account for 20% of all face-to-face transactions.Inspriration4, the civilian-crewed space mission …

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As Users Flock to Cash App, the Product Delivers Nearly Half of Square’s Profit

Square Inc. started out in 2009 as a slick new way for micro merchants and small sellers to get sophisticated point-of-sale gear along with payment processing. On Tuesday, the company showed it’s still getting more than half its gross profit from its merchant business, but its Cash App trade is …

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Digital Transactions