Loyalty apps are great, but they badly need a technology overhaul. By adding artificial intelligence, retailers can step up customer engagement and convert more sales. As brick-and-mortar retailers battle for foot traffic and sales, there is good news for them. Gen Z, the first truly digitally native generation, were strolling …

Across multiple industries, workers and consumers are increasingly looking for right-now funding. Businesses that want to thrive will have to meet that expectation. In a world where instant gratification is king, Freddie Mercury’s famous lyrics have never rung truer: “I want it all, I want it all, I want it …

PINs are past their prime. Signatures? Forget it. With criminals increasingly on the prowl, much more robust technology is needed. The good news is such tech is available. But will consumers tolerate it? Despite a now almost 3-year-old decision by the four major U.S. card brands to make signatures optional …

A new PCI standard for using off-the-shelf mobile phones and tablets to accept tap-and-go payments should open the door for more contactless transactions. How much more is another question. It’s the ultimate conven­ience for a harried merchant: just whip out a regular smart phone or tablet and ask the customer …

There is, perhaps, no subject in the digital-payments world more fraught with urgency these days than that of authentication. After all, just about all players in the payments chain, from merchant to service provider to processor to bank, have a huge stake in making sure the customer performing the transaction …

PayPal Holdings Inc. announced it has signed a commercial agreement with MercadoLibre, a major e-commerce marketplace in Latin America. As part of the deal, PayPal will become a payment choice in the Mercado Pago online checkout for customers in Brazil and Mexico, a move PayPal says could lead to PayPal users getting …

E-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc. said the 2019 holiday shopping season was a record-breaker for the company, with “billions of items ordered,” including “tens of millions” of Amazon devices. The company didn’t disclose payment volumes.Following a 79% collapse last year, the cryptocurrency market rebounded in 2019 to a total value of $192.3 billion, up 58%, …

Citcon USA LLC said it prevailed in a lawsuit against Canada-based RiverPay Inc. over allegations of misappropriation of source code trade secrets. Citcon, which helps North American merchants integrate Chinese mobile wallet acceptance, sued RiverPay in 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California because it said RiverPay …

Fleetcor Technologies Inc., a payments processor for fleet-fueling cards and other products, issued a statement contesting a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed against the company Dec. 20 and asserting it will “vigorously” defend itself against the agency’s complaint in court. The FTC alleges Fleetcor charged customers “at least hundreds of millions of …

InComm, a provider of payments processing for the prepaid market, launched its Vanilla Visa prepaid and gift cards in Mexico.Levelset, a payments provider for the construction industry, announced a $30-million funding round led by Horizons Ventures.Butterfly Network Inc., provider of a handheld ultrasound application for mobile devices, said its technology …