News

July, 2021

• 27 July

  Volumes Soar for Visa As the Payments Network Looks to Its Next Move in Open Banking

  

  The big network executives aren’t quite ready to come right out and say it, but they’re certainly coming close to declaring their systems are just about at pre-pandemic performance levels. The latest example came Tuesday afternoon, when Visa Inc.’s results for the quarter ended June 30 prompted chairman and chief …
• 27 July

  Eye on Acquiring: Shift4 Adds the United Center, And OLB Dives Deeper Into CBD

  

  Shift4 Payments Inc. continued its expansion into sports and entertainment venues Tuesday, announcing that it will provide payment processing for Chicago’s United Center, home to the National Basketball Association’s Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League. The payments offering relies on Shift4’s VenueNext technology.  Shift4 said …
• 27 July

  Fiserv’s Acquiring Unit Rides to New Heights on the Back of Tech Like Clover and Carat

  

  If there are lingering doubts about a big comeback for the big merchant processors, Fiserv Inc. may well have dispelled them early Tuesday with results showing 43% second-quarter growth in revenue year-over-year for the company’s merchant-acceptance unit. That performance comes on top of a near-doubling in payment volume for the …
• 27 July

  Nacha Volume Increases 10% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/27/21

  

  Nacha, the governing body for the automated clearing house system, said the ACH network processed 7.3 billion payments in the second quarter, a 10% increase from 6.6 billion payments in the same period a year ago. Particularly strong growth in business-to-business payment volume helped boost the result. Nacha said that …
• 26 July

  Consumer Adoption of Contactless Payments Continues to Surge, Says Latest CardFlight Report

  

  Nearly 18 months into the Covid-19 pandemic, consumer usage of contactless payments continues to grow, according to the most recent CardFlight Small Business Report. During the week ending July 18, contactless transactions increased 597.7% from the March 2020 baseline period. Contactless usage has been steadily increasing on a weekly basis …
• 26 July

  How the Pandemic Has Forced Changes in the Way Acquirers Approach—And Sell to—Merchants

  

  Ever since the Covid pandemic set in more than a year ago, the payments industry has been abuzz with talk about its various impacts on merchant acceptance. What hasn’t received as much attention is how the pandemic has affected merchant acquiring. It turns out processors and independent sales organizations have …
• 26 July

  Australia Peeks Into Apple Pay and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 726/21

  

  An Australian Parliament committee held a hearing investigating Apple Inc.’s policies regarding access to the secure element for payment services on its smart phones, according to a ZDNet.com report. Apple argued its hardware-based interface is more secure than a software-focused one. Google, which uses host card emulation software for Google Pay, said …
• 23 July

  Consumer Spending Helps Put AmEx Within a Whisker of Pre-Pandemic Times

  

  American Express Co. posted second-quarter numbers Friday indicating the card giant is very nearly back to its pre-pandemic performance and reflecting a steady recovery from the travel restrictions that hampered the company for most of 2020. Driving the improved results was steady improvement in the company’s vital travel-and-entertainment business and …
• 23 July

  Paystand Secures $50 Million in Funding and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/23/21

  

  Blockchain-based business-to-business payments network Paystand Inc. announced a $50-million Series C funding round led by NewView Capital.Payments provider Paystone Inc. received a $30-million investment from Credit Mutuel Equity. Paystone said it will use the funds to fuel growth.ForumPay, whose technology converts cryptocurrency spent by consumers into fiat currency for processing, said it will work with …
• 23 July

  COMMENTARY: Could PayPal’s Latest Fee Boost Make It the Merchant Lobby’s Next Target?

  

  The yin and yang of political, and ferociously commercial, PayPal was vividly on display with its announcement last month of a massive price hike. The e-commerce phenom attaches itself to an array of woke causes but remains a wonderfully hard-nosed commercial enterprise, keen to be fully compensated for the enormous value …