Issuing/Originating

Some 83% of consumers said they had used a QR code in the past year to make a payment or complete a financial transaction, with 54% of those persons saying they had used a QR code for those purposes for the first time in only the past three months. Still, just 39% …

Mastercard Inc. said it will acquire Ekata, a digital identity services company, for $850 million. Ekata helps identify good customers and businesses and bad actors in real time, it said. Ekata, formerly the business-to-business unit of Whitepages Pro, spun off in 2019 and adopted the new name. The deal is expected …

More evidence emerges of how consumer spending has changed in the past year. Consumers are using their debit cards more for transactions at hotels and motels within the travel sector, according to the PSCU Payments Index for April. Released Thursday, the index shows that debit card use accounted for 35% …

After the current U.S. Congress was sworn in, a predictable chorus of merchants, lobbyists, and lawmakers demanded new interchange price caps and other government mandates to decrease credit card interchange fees for merchants. The tired attacks on credit cards are an easy narrative that focuses almost exclusively on the cost …

Faster-payment volume soared 88% on the nation’s automated clearing house network in the year’s first quarter compared to the same period in 2020, Nacha reported Thursday. Transactions processed the same day they were initiated totaled 141.1 million, compared to 75 million in last year’s March quarter, the last period before …

Cardlytics Inc., a specialist in deriving marketing data from payments flows, has agreed to acquire customer-data platform Bridg Inc. for $350 million.Pay Theory, a specialist in payments technology for school districts, is integrating its services with Abre.io, a provider of administration platforms for elementary and high schools.Airvet, a provider of …

Cybersecurity provider RSA said payment transaction volume using 3-D Secure increased 73% globally in 2020 over 2019 in its RSA Quarterly Fraud report for the 2021 first quarter.The payments provider FreedomPay said the Foot Locker Inc. chain has installed its payments system across Foot Locker’s more than 2,000 U.S. stores.Workflow-automation company DocuPhase announced it has acquired …

While account takeover is a major concern for financial institutions and merchants, many underestimate the cost as well as the frequency of attacks, says a report released Thursday by Arkose Labs, a San Francisco-based provider of fraud-prevention technology. Indeed, one of the costliest aspects of account takeovers is the loss of …

Square Inc. entered the acquiring market in Ireland with its Early Access Program, which offers small and medium-size merchants what the company calls exclusive access to Square technology. Square expects to launch its technology generally in Ireland later this year.Transact Holdings Inc., a specialist in payments technology for college campuses, said …

“We are looking very carefully at the question of whether we should issue a digital dollar,” said Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell in testimony before the Senate banking committee. “We are the world’s reserve currency and we have a responsibility to get this right.” As digital currency moves from the …