Issuing/Originating

In a move that could weave cryptocurrency more deeply into the fabric of the U.S. payments industry, Circle Internet Group Inc. announced late Monday it has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form a national trust bank. The application, which seeks to establish what Circle …

Credit card issuers and others relying on the credit bureau Experian plc to aid with decisions about extending services to consumers will be able to tie into Experian’s integration of Mastercard Inc.’s identity-verification and fraud-prevention tech in the Experian Ascend Platform. Announced Thursday, the integration means users of the Ascend …

PayPal Holdings Inc. will process payments from universities to student athletes under multi-year deals the payments company announced early Thursday. PayPal’s agreements with the Big 10 and Big 12 college conferences follows a court ruling June 6 that permits colleges and universities to include student athletes in a revenue share. …

Xero Ltd., an accounting and payments firm, announced it will acquire the payments platform Melio Inc. for $2.5 billion upfront, with another $500 million in payments tied to performance targets. The commerce platform NuOrder by Lightspeed launched Order Trends, a compilation of statistics aimed at informing merchants’ buying decisions. Canada-based fintech Nuvei Corp. said …

Stablecoins are the talk of the payments town, and some observers are questioning whether these new digital alternatives could undercut the core network businesses of Mastercard and Visa. Now, Mastercard Inc. has announced several initiatives it says will keep it in the thick of the growing stablecoin market. In a …

The commerce platform NuOrder by Lightspeed said it will work with Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman as part of an expanded agreement with Saks Global. In related news, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. said it will integrate reservations software from Whoosh for golf and club clients using Lightspeed’s payments platform. Shift4 Payments Inc. said it has yet …

Fiserv Inc. and Circle Internet Group Inc. early Monday announced they will collaborate to build products based on stablecoins for banks and merchants in Fiserv’s client base. The announcement came at the same time Fiserv said it plans to launch its own stablecoin, FIUSD, by year’s end. Simultaneously, Fiserv said …

Michigan consumers enrolled in Meijer Inc.’s mPerks rewards program saved nearly $200 million the past year, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based supermarket chain announced late Thursday. To encourage consumers enrolled in mPerks to shop more often this summer, Meijer is offering customers the opportunity to earn 30 points on every gallon …

With rules governing stablecoins under development in the U.S. Congress, there are now at least 14 countries and regions worldwide that have established or are considering regulations for the digital currency. The need for regulations in jurisdictions around the globe comes as stablecoins grow in awareness and usage and pose …

With action Tuesday by the U.S. Senate to pass the GENIUS Act, the move to establish rules that would govern the burgeoning stablecoin industry now transits to the U.S. House of Representatives, where lawmakers have developed their own set of rules, the STABLE Act. Meanwhile, stablecoin-market participants are looking to the …