Bitcoin has floundered because it serves no real need. The story with Libra is far different. While Bitcoin and Libra are both currencies and payment systems, their potentials are vastly different. From its inception, Bitcoin evangelists enthused it would upend reigning fiat currencies and electronic-payment systems. A high-octane cocktail of …

Foundational changes in payments — the emergence of fintechs, a mobile-first approach by consumers, and the digitization of payment methods — are altering vital relationships in the industry. Two thousand twenty may be the year that many of the underlying changes various payments players have made in the last few …

While Facebook has gotten the lion’s share of attention for its attempt to launch a digital currency, the real future of digital-currency payments may lie with the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart Inc. Walmart, based in Bentonville, Ark., filed a patent application on Aug. 1 for a “system and method for …

Close observers of the payments business may have noticed lately that while Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have failed to live up to their promises, some pretty big and important players are nonetheless climbing on the blockchain bandwagon. Perhaps the most prominent of these arrivistes is, of course, Facebook. The social-media …

Boost Payment Solutions Inc., an acquirer for commercial card transactions, said it is collaborating with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to process payments and automate delivery for Chase’s Single Use Card Accounts and other commercial cards.Cardlytics Inc., which derives marketing intelligence from purchase data, reported a 116% year-over-year increase in monthly …

PayPal Holdings Inc. and Synchrony Financial have been sparing about the details of a new credit card they plan to issue for PayPal’s Venmo peer-to-peer payment service, but on Monday a top Synchrony executive said the partners are counting on a key characteristic of Venmo to help market the new card. …

The four global U.S.-based payment card networks unveiled their joint e-commerce buy button this week, which means merchants, merchant acquirers, and processors can look forward to—or dread—implementing it. Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Alfred F. Kelly Jr. predicted Thursday they shouldn’t have too many problems. The button is based …

In the face of multiple defections so far, Facebook Inc.’s controversial cryptocurrency project scored a victory of sorts Monday when 21 remaining backers officially signed on at a crucial meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. In a busy day, the companies making up the Libra Association signed on to the project’s charter, …

Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., merchant processor Stripe Inc. and online marketplace eBay Inc. said Friday afternoon they will not join the Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency project. The defections came a week after PayPal Holdings Inc. became the first of the Libra Association’s 28 tentative members to withdraw in the face of …

Facebook Inc. and its proposed Libra cryptocurrency may have stolen the headlines lately, but in the background companies are working to make cryptocurrency like Bitcoin easier to buy and sell by deploying specialized kiosks and simplifying what can seem to outsiders a quite abstruse payment process. One of the most …