Transaction Processing

U.S. retail sales, excluding automotive products, grew 3.1% year-over-year in the Nov. 1 through Dec. 24 period, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse. The result is not adjusted for inflation. Standouts were e-commerce sales, up 6.3%, and restaurants, at 7.8%. The worst performer was jewelry, at negative 2%. Blockchain operator Paxos said it will …

Having taken aim at credit card late fees and interest rates, and having targeted non-bank digital wallet providers, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra has now indicated his regulatory agency is turning its attention to credit card acceptance costs. Chopra’s comments Thursday came as the Credit Card Competition Act, …

The data-sharing routines undergirding a wide variety of payments services offered by fintechs like PayPal and Block depend on open banking, which has emerged to enable crucial information transfers from financial institutions while keeping sensitive account data from falling into the wrong hands. Now the latest update to the rules …

Overfuel, a provider of online payments for automobile dealerships, has integrated credit reporting from 700Credit LLC to allow users to prequalify for credit on a dealer’s Web site or on a mobile phone. Accounting platform Data Plus is teaming with Edenred Pay, a back-end payments provider for the hospitality industry, to launch …

Buy now, pay later loans have become in a relatively short time a popular financing option for consumers, especially for holiday-season shopping. But now, that’s increasingly true not just for gifts, but for everyday purchases as well, according to data from payment-solutions and card-issuing platform provider Marqeta Inc. Based on …

As digital transactions proliferate, technology is enabling automakers to do more than make it easy to pay for parking from a dashboard. Features that have been standard in many cars, such as heated seats, can now be a service fee away. Such software-related revenue is forecasted to grow at a …

LawFi, a payments platform for law firms, announced a $1.5-million pre-seed funding round from Capital Q Ventures. Digital-banking provider Ibanera announced Portl, a set of blockchain-based payments technologies for online gaming. NordVPN, a vendor of cybersecurity technology, launched an insurance program offering victims of identity theft reimbursement up to $1 million for …

The big payments processor Worldpay early Wednesday and late Tuesday announced two major deals, one of which will see it supporting multichannel payments for HMV, a London-based seller of DVDs, audio cassettes, CDs, and other entertainment products through a chain of more than 100 stores. The other development, announced late …

Citing a payments industry that is united in its opposition to the Credit Card Competition Act, research from the Congressional Research Service questioning the benefits of the legislation, and suspect support for the bill among members of Congress, the Electronic Payments Coalition says it is primed to continue its fight …

The payouts platform Onbe said it will enable instant payment on virtual Mastercard cards to consumers who want to sell unused gift cards on the CardCash secondary gift card market. Buy now, pay later platform Affirm Inc. said it is expanding to self-checkout kiosks in more than 4,500 U.S. Walmart stores. U.S. households spend …