When the Federal Trade Commission announced two days before Christmas it had leveled a preliminary consent order against Mastercard Inc. to correct what the agency saw as roadblocks the card company had erected against routing online debit transactions to competing networks, the move may have surprised at least some observers. …

Prizeout Corp., an adtech firm and e-gift card issuer, has partnered with Square to enable Square merchants to integrate their Square account with Prizeout’s platform. The integration will streamline e-gift settlement for Square merchants on transactions managed by Prizeout. In addition, Square merchants will be able to make their e-gift …

One impression of consumers who use buy now, pay later services is that they may not be as financially literate as others. New data from Capterra, a software reviews and selection platform, indicate that picture may not be entirely accurate. In Arlington, Va.-based Capterra’s “2022 Buy Now, Pay Later Survey,” …

The number of card-accepting merchant locations around the world reached a record high of 88 million in 2021, up 2% over 2020 as measures to fight the pandemic helped stoke consumer usage of payment cards rather than alternatives like cash, according to research released Monday by London-based research firm RBR. …

Thales, a French company known in the payments industry for its digital-identity technology, on Thursday introduced a product that it says will allow visually impaired shoppers to verify the details of a card transaction while standing at the point of sale. The Voice Payment Card, which Thales announced has been …

The real winners from the Fed’s latest debit card routing rule aren’t the merchants. And they certainly aren’t the banks. Guess who? In the last decade, the flow of funds across debit card networks has curiously become a concern of Congress and the Federal Reserve.  It all began with the …

A prominent merchant trade group on Thursday began running a TV commercial that uses Visa Inc.’s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup to decry credit card acceptance fees and advocate for a bill backed by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would regulate those costs. The 30-second commercial, which lays heavy …

Merchants in the United States that use Square’s point-of-sale technology and also accept American Express will be getting a credit card from Square in coming months that will run on AmEx’s network. The so-called Square Credit Card is said to be the first credit card the Block Inc. unit has …

The big processor Fiserv Inc. said Wednesday morning it will offer so-called programmable payments to its financial-institution clients through a partnership with IncumbentFI, a San Francisco-based technology provider. The technology allows cardholders to attach a variety of funding sources to a single card and choose one for individual transactions. In …

Electronic Verification Systems, a provider of identity- and age-verification solutions, early Monday announced the launch of AssurePay, a credit card-verification platform that EVS says authenticates consumer credit card information at the beginning of the payment process, instead of while the card data is being held for processing. To validate a …