With global economies expected to re-open as more consumers receive Covid-19 vaccinations, in-store retail spending will hit $22.8 trillion worldwide in 2022. That’s after in-store sales fell 7% in 2020 as many consumers shifted purchases online. The projection comes from London-based Kaleido Intelligence Ltd.  While the Covid-19 pandemic impacted in-store …

With the Covid-19 pandemic still imposing a huge financial weight on the nation’s small businesses and families, many legislators are understandably eager to pursue policies they feel will ease that burden. But lawmakers must be careful that they are looking at policies that really will help. Unfortunately, some sectors—in this …

Switched transactions dipped 1% for the week ended Feb. 21 for Mastercard Inc. compared to the same week last year, the card network reported. It is the first weekly year-over-year dip in switched transactions for Mastercard so far this year and reflects a swing from 4% growth in the week ended Feb. …

Payments provider Clearent LLC and Transaction Services Group, a New Zealand-based software and integrated payments provider, will merge and form Xplor Technologies, TSG announced. Terms were not disclosed. Both companies are part of investor Advent International’s portfolio. The combined company will serve more than 82,000 businesses that processed more than $27 billion …

Buy now, pay later specialist Uplift Inc. said it signed new travel brands and experienced a 72% growth in monthly transaction revenue in the 2020 fourth quarter. New clients coming online in the second quarter include Alaska Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Virgin Voyages, and Air Canada Vacations.ACI Worldwide Inc. said it and Gilbarco Veeder-Root, …

Visa Inc. is leveraging its sponsorship of the National Football League with a new one-day promotion geared to attract small businesses to its Authorize.Net payment gateway on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7. Visa announced Tuesday that it will waive Authorize.Net’s monthly gateway fee for the life of an account, along …

As consumers pivoted in droves to digital channels for purchases and financial services at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, criminals pounced on the trend to perpetrate more fraud and identity theft, according to data from credit-reporting agency TransUnion LLC. Between March 11 and April 28, 2020, when the first …

Wells Fargo Co. said overall levels of optimism among small businesses remain at just more than half where they were late last year, even though its Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index rose 12 points for the second straight quarter in the latest period.As local governments imposed measures to control fresh outbreaks …

E-commerce has been setting records during the coronavirus pandemic, but processors should be thinking about ways to innovate. For example: how to make transactions simpler, faster, and more secure? Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, e-commerce was big business for merchants and processors. But since the pandemic struck in March, online …

Visa Inc. has formed a partnership with virtual-payments technology provider Conferma Pay to launch Visa Commercial Pay, a venture in virtual commercial cards. Available globally, the suite will be available from Visa’s financial institution clients. Visa and Conferma Pay have a long-standing relationship. “Consumerization of [business-to-business] payments has significantly accelerated during …