E-Commerce

The U.S. Department of Transportation is looking into airline rewards programs with an eye on protecting consumers from potential unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices, the department says. Many consumers use cobranded airline credit cards to earn points in these programs, though the DOT’s focus is on rewards, not on card-issuing …

Chase emailed its cardholders Friday that it will soon offer Paze, a new online checkout service from Early Warning Services LLC, and that eligible Chase credit and debit cards will be linked to Paze. The bank will notify cardholders when Paze is ready for use. Chase also provided the option to opt …

Visa Inc. announced early Thursday it will launch account-to-account (A2A) payment capabilities in the United Kingdom in early 2025. The move will allow U.K. consumers paying bills to do so directly from their bank account, as opposed to paying by check, cash, or card. Visa’s plans for the service, called …

American Express Co. said fintech Knot is testing a new feature that enables select AmEx cardholders to add their payment information at participating merchants, including Bloomingdale’s, Hilton, and Macy’s. With Knot, AmEx can enable its customers to update card-on-file information instantly, AmEx said, using Knot’s CardSwitcher technology and proprietary AmEx tech. …

Payments-technology provider Opus Technologies Inc. has launched Paysemble, a suite of apps that are meant to streamline payment integration for financial institutions and merchants. A cloud-based solution, Paysemble allows businesses to consolidate payments from multiple channels through interoperable message hubs, configurable security, and batch processing. As a result, businesses can …

U.S. Bank said it is launching two new products, the Smartly Visa Signature card and the Smartly Savings account. The former offers as much as 4% cash back on transactions. Some 48% of consumers in the U.S. market are using digital wallets for payments, up from 38% in 2021, according to …

Jack Henry & Associates Inc. has partnered with payment processor Moov Financial Inc. to enable financial institutions to offer small and medium-size businesses enhanced digital-payment services. The partnership is expected to help financial institutions attract more smaller businesses as clients and strengthen existing relationships with such sellers by providing for …

The Small Business Index from the big processor Fiserv Inc. stood at 141 in August, with no change from July. Year-over-year, small-business sales were up 1.6%, while total transactions grew 5.7%, according to the Index. The research is based on in-store and online transaction data from roughly 2 million U.S. small businesses, …

The general-purpose reloadable prepaid card market is expanding fast as audiences as diverse as the underbanked population and frequent business travelers adopt the products for their convenience and as alternatives or complements to bank accounts. Now the Serve Cash Back Card has earned a first-place finish in Javelin Strategy & …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has expanded its relationship with the big processor Fiserv Inc. to make its payment options more readily available to Fiserv clients in the United States. The move with Fiserv is expected to simplify connectivity for Fiserv clients to PayPal and Venmo payment apps and make it easier …