Capital One Financial Corp. may be on the brink of acquiring Discover Financial Services, if two news reports are accurate. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.com separately reported on Monday a deal between the two credit card juggernauts is in the offing, with The Journal reporting an announcement could come …
Read More »Smaller Issuers Have Better Rates, CFPB Says and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/16/24
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most recent analysis of card issuing practices found that in the first half of 2023 small banks and credit unions tended to offer lower interest rates than the top 25 issuers. For consumers with scores between 620 and 719, the median annual percentage rate for a large …
Read More »Booming Same-Day ACH Volume Is Up 22%
Volume for automated clearing house transactions cleared and settled on the same day they’re initiated increased 22.3% in 2023, signaling the embrace of same-day ACH by the payments industry, Nacha says. Same-day processing was launched nearly eight years ago. Nacha, a rulemaker for the ACH network, says overall ACH volume …
Read More »If Top Card Execs Must Testify, So Should Merchant Leaders, CCCA Opponents Argue
Days after Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent letters to the chief executives of Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. demanding they testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about their opposition to the Credit Card Competition Act, the Electronic Payments Coalition is asking why the committee is not requesting that leaders of …
Read More »Shift4’s AI-Based Site Builder And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/15/24
Shift4 Payments Inc. launched SkyTab Website Builder, a tool enabling restaurants to more easily design a Web site. Businesses using Shift4’s SkyTab point-of-sale payments technology can access the new service for free. Blackhawk Network announced Select Codes, which businesses can send to customers to enable access to prepaid gift cards. Bank of …
Read More »BofA Zelle Users at 21.5 Million And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/13/24
Bank of America reported an all-time high 21.5 million customers now use the peer-to-peer payments network Zelle. BofA customers last year sent and received 1.24 billion Zelle payments totaling $373 billion, both also record highs. In the fourth quarter, Zelle send transactions were double the number of checks written, the bank …
Read More »Visa Adds Virtual Card Capabilities for Commercial Card Users
Just as Visa Inc. is expanding its Commercial Pay service to the Latin American and Caribbean region, it is making virtual card issuance for its commercial card clients a reality. Visa says Commercial Pay clients, which have access to a host of B2B payment services, now can add virtual corporate …
Read More »At a Double-Digit Growth Rate, BNPL Isn’t Cooling off
The buy now, pay later trend emerged in the U.S. market in a big way in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic as a means to let strapped consumers make point-of-sale and online transactions with partial payments, while financing the balance over a short term. Since then, the U.S. …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Charting a Course Toward Transparent and Secure Digital Payments
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is revolutionizing the way consumers and businesses handle their financial affairs, offering an innovative alternative to traditional, centralized financial systems. This transformation is creating a dynamic financial landscape where both traditional finance methods and DeFi coexist, encouraging real-time, transparent, and secure digital payment solutions. This evolution presents …
Read More »ABA Formalizes BIN Administration Handoff to Long-Term Partner CUSIP
CUSIP Global Services announced late Wednesday that it will be taking over day-to-day operations of the administration of the issuer identification number system from the American Bankers Association. The change is not monumental as CUSIP has a long history of managing numbering programs for the financial services industry. The ABA …
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