Visa Inc. has spent more than $9 billion over the past five years to boost cybersecurity and reduce fraud, according to an announcement the network made in a blog post Tuesday. Of that amount, $500 million has been spent on artificial intelligence and data infrastructure. As a result of its …

Transactions on gift cards and cryptocurrency—and even buy now, pay later capability—are coming to commercial washers, dryers, and vending machines with an announcement Monday by PayRange Inc. that it will support the new payment methods. The Portland, Ore.-based company, which says it processes for more than half a million commercial …

Despite rampant inflation and supply-chain shortages that have made certain products hard to come by, gift cards, whether they are physical or digital, remain popular with consumers. Indeed, 58% of consumers plan to purchase more gift cards as an alternative to tangible products due to inventory shortages in 2022, according …

Panini S.p.A., which has been expanding beyond its base in devices for image processing, said early Tuesday the Federal Bureau of Investigation has certified its fingerprint-authentication technology, called BioCred. The scanning technology meets image-quality specifications set by the FBI’s Appendix F standard, said to be the law-enforcement agency’s highest standard …

Mastercard Inc. early Wednesday said it will launch two new payments tools that rely on the card network’s rapidly growing stake in open banking and account-to-account transactions. The new digital tools, which Mastercard says will not be available until later this year, are expected to address risk and uncertainty in …

Boosted by strong growth in its automated clearing house services, credit card acquiring, and other business lines, merchant processor Usio Inc. reported Thursday that its total dollars processed grew 215% in 2021’s fourth quarter from a year earlier and 184% for the full year. San Antonio, Texas-based Usio processed $9.5 …

Buy now, pay later options for consumers continue to grow. Nascent airline Breeze Airways will offer Uplift Inc.’s BNPL option to its travelers and Mastercard Inc. announced several more retailers joined its Mastercard Installments program. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Uplift said it is the exclusive BNPL option for Breeze flights. The service …

Fraudsters targeted fintechs at an alarming rate in 2021, according to Sift Science Inc.’s first-quarter 2022 Digital Trust & Safety Index. The index reveals that the payment-fraud attack rate across fintechs within Sift’s network increased a whopping 70% in 2021 compared to 2020. The attack rate is defined as the …

Having held off for the past two years, the country’s two biggest card networks are preparing revisions to their interchange schedules that at least one research firm says will cost U.S. merchants an estimated $475 million in additional transaction fees. Though Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have historically revised their …

As Russian armed forces continue their assault on Ukraine, Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and American Express Co. late Saturday said they are suspending all operations in Russia, following up on actions taken by the networks nearly a week earlier. Meanwhile, reports began to filter out of Russia that at least some …