Long-time credit union service and financial-technology providers PSCU and Co-op Solutions announced a merger late Monday. The merged entity, which has yet to be named, will create an end-to-end payments system for credit unions of all sizes, PSCU chief executive and president Charles E. “Chuck” Fagan, promised during a press …

More than 10 years after Visa Inc. wrote its rules permitting surcharging on its credit cards, questions remain among acquirers, especially those selling or considering surcharge programs for their merchants. Now, as more merchants mull surcharge or cash-discount programs to alleviate some of their card-acceptance costs, and with recent changes …

According to recent research, American households carried a whopping $17.1 trillion in total debt as of the second quarter of 2023. The herculean effort to become debt-free continues to weigh on the shoulders of millions of Americans. We’ve seen the landscape of the U.S. workforce change drastically over the past …

The big processor Nuvei Corp. extended its reach into open banking Thursday through an agreement with American Express Co. to sell AmEx’s Pay with Bank transfer open-banking solution. Pay with Bank transfer (PwBt) enables consumers to pay for purchases directly from their bank account online or in-store. The partnership comes …

Gift cards are becoming a popular employee incentive, Fiserv Inc.’s “Q4 2023 Gift Card Survey” finds. Some 80% of respondents say they would prefer a gift card as a reward from their employer, while 9% say they would prefer an event or outing, and 11% would prefer some other type …

The payments-technology provider Dwolla Inc. has integrated its Dwolla Connect platform for account-to-account payments in open finance. The integration will enable Dwolla Connect clients to transfer open-finance data to the Dwolla platform, the company says. As a result, financial institutions and third-party open-banking providers, such as Plaid Inc. and MX …

Observers of the payments industry who wonder how the Federal Reserve’s proposed rate reductions for debit card acceptance might be received by the nation’s biggest processors heard an unequivocal answer early Tuesday from at least one of them.  “Any time the cost of acceptance goes down, it’s a positive for …

Two point-of-sale companies have separately taken steps to boost their competitiveness, one with an acquisition and the other in a marketing expansion. Payments platform Nayax Ltd. says it will acquire Folsom, Calif.-based Retail Pro International in a $36.5-million deal. Expected to close in the fourth quarter, the deal will expand …

Like a thunderclap, on Oct. 25 the stock price of continental Europe’s biggest payment processor, Worldline, plummeted 59%. It’s down a whopping 88% from its high in April 2021. Macroeconomic conditions are to blame, but so are Worldline-specific factors. The reign of easy money is over. Easy money inflates valuations. …

Last year, credit card issuers charged consumers more than $105 billion in interest and more than $25 billion in fees, $14.5 billion of which came from late fees, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s biennial credit card market report. Credit card holders paid about 20% of their average balance …