As banks and merchants fight over interchange regulation in Washington, the real struggle is in shoppers’ wallets, phones, and Web browsers. Last month, I wrote about how merchants use discounts, surcharges, and direct bank payments to influence consumer behavior. This month, we’ll look at another tool that merchants can use …

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 …

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 …

Proponents and opponents of the Credit Card Competition Act continue to press their respective cases for passage and rejection of the CCCA by Congress. Late Monday, the Merchants Payments Coalition fired the latest salvo in its campaign to pass the CCCA, a television commercial that literally shows a consumer getting …

For payments software platforms, control of transaction data is the key to a smooth M&A process. Analysts and business leaders have spent the past year scrutinizing the impact of increasingly volatile revenue streams on critical organizational functions. Across industries, this includes variables like employee headcount and retention, physical office requirements, …

A new way of shopping using the PayPal app and related services is in the offing. Announced Thursday, the update includes a one-click guest checkout experience, digital receipts PayPal calls Smart Receipts, a revised offers platform, and improvements to business profiles for Venmo, its social peer-to-peer payments service. The moves …

Kindcard Inc., which among other services provides closed-loop payments technology connecting businesses and consumers, said it has entered a letter of intent to acquire OpenTransact from AcePay Inc. OpenTransact offers a banking platform that supports high-risk merchants. Terms were not disclosed. The tokens USDT and USDC dominate the stablecoin market, …

The Credit Card Competition Act, if it becomes law, will likely have unintended consequences for the businesses that sign up merchants for payment processing. Not all of them are good. Introduced more than a year ago, the Credit Card Competition Act has quickly become the hottest topic in the payments …

As the digital economy continues to grow, people are relying on virtual transactions more than ever. But with the expansion of digital money movement comes new opportunities for fraudsters to exploit merchants and their customers. In today’s economy, fraudulent activity can happen anywhere, to just about anyone. Digital cybercriminals are …

The payments market is enjoying more vitality and growth than most can remember. So what’s behind the recent market rout? The payments market is enormous and growing. Capgemini forecasts a 15% compound annual growth rate for global noncash digital payments through 2027. The Boston Consulting Group estimates global acquiring revenue …