The word “block” may have a number of meanings, but for Square Inc. it could mean a stronger emphasis on blockchain. That’s how some observers interpret the company’s announcement Wednesday afternoon that it is changing its name effective Dec. 10 to Block Inc., a dozen years after its founding as …

And you thought stablecoins were all about ‘set it and forget it.’ Some—including the government—think otherwise. It is one of the ironies of the payments business these days that there seems to be little that’s stable about the news surrounding stablecoins. For a concept that came on the scene a …

Consumer concerns about slow deliveries and worldwide inventory issues means some 45% of holiday-season spending this year will go to gift cards, according to survey results from consumers in 10 countries gathered by Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. That represents a 27% increase in gift card spending from last year’s holidays, Blackhawk says. …

As part of its efforts to expand real-time payments globally, financial-service technology provider Nium Pte. Ltd., has partnered with Roxe, a global payment network that uses blockchain technology to settle transactions. The partnership will allow Roxe to leverage the reach of Nium’s network to initiate cross-border payouts, including those from …

Processor Nuvei Corp. announced it handled $21.6 billion in volume in the third quarter, up 88% year-over-year, with e-commerce accounting for 83% of that total. Revenue grew 96% to $183.9 million. Nuvei completed its initial public offering last month and trades on the Nasdaq.Global business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce volume will hit $6 trillion next year, …

Apple Inc. filed an objection to a September U.S. District Court ruling that it says hinders the computing giant’s ability to restrict developers on its App Store to Apple’s own payment system. The ruling upheld Apple’s requirement that developers use its payment system within the App Store but said Apple must allow references to …

Quantum entities are fundamentally offensive to our experience and intuition. They are like a four-dimensional physical universe. We can’t imagine a world with length, width, and height plus a fourth dimension. But we can handle this notion mathematically. The same is true for quantum entities. The illustrious Richard Feynman, one …

Nium Pte. Ltd., a fintech specializing in payments and card issuance for businesses, launched what it calls crypto-as-a-service technology and extended its banking-as-a-service platform to the U.S. market. The former technology supports banks that want to add services supporting cryptocurrency investment.In related news, ACI Worldwide Inc. announced its ACI Secure Commerce unit will offer …

Purchase scams, in which consumers pay for goods that never arrive, was the number-one fraud type in the second quarter in terms of card-fraud attempts, beating out social-engineering frauds, according to fraud-prevention firm Feedzai. The top city for overall fraud attempts was Las Vegas, with fraud up 411% in the quarter …

Retail spending, except for automotive and gas, increased 5.4% in September year-over-year, Mastercard Inc. said in its latest SpendingPulse report. E-commerce sales were up 11.5% over last year for the same period.Sila Inc., a fintech software platform, has combined forces with Arcus Inc., a payments-technology firm, to allow businesses to make payments …