Covid-19 has been highly disruptive to the U.S. retail sector, with research estimating sales will fall by 10.5% this year. The same forecast suggests small, mainly brick-and-mortar retailers will see a 14% drop in sales. Even now, months after the pandemic’s first appearance in the U.S market, forty-five percent of …

As were all payments networks, Mastercard Inc. was hammered by the novel coronavirus pandemic, but its leaders Wednesday morning pointed to a tentative recovery. “Overall, we see signs of improvement, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” noted Ajay Banga, Mastercard’s outgoing chief executive, during a conference call with …

Discover Financial Services reported its payment-services volume totaled $69.7 billion in the third quarter, up 11% year-over-year. Volume on the Pulse debit network increased 16% to $55 billion owing to larger average spending due to the pandemic and to the lift from stimulus funds.Payments provider PaymentCloud Inc. said it acquired contactless technology startup …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday announced the rollout in 15 geographic markets of Visa Tap to Phone, which allows consumers to initiate a transaction simply by tapping a contactless card to a merchant’s NFC-enabled mobile device.  Tap to Phone is now live in numerous countries throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia …

Billtrust, a provider of accounts-receivable software for businesses, said it will go public at a valuation of $1.3 billion through a merger with South Mountain Merger Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Going public via a SPAC has become an increasingly popular option in recent months.In …

China has historically pioneered the evolution of money. From the ancient use of cowry shells as commodity money, the standardization of bronze coins around 1000 B.C., leather-made promissory notes during the Han dynasty, or the introduction of paper currency around the seventh century, China has shown the way. It should then come …

MoneyGram International Inc. reached an agreement with Lulu Money in which consumers in Hong Kong can send or receive money at any Lulu Money location and also link to the MoneyGram network.In related news, MoneyGram and PayMaya, a payments provider in the Philippines, have agreed to launch a service that will allow …

The announcement from the Federal Reserve late Monday of a pilot for the FedNow real-time payments service may represent an important stage in the development of a service not expected to go live until 2023 at the earliest. But observers caution rival services have already made headway with key market …

The Western Union Co. has extended an agreement with grocer The Kroger Co. to offer Western Union payment services at Kroger stores.Parking-app provider ParkMobile LLC announced an agreement with Diamond Parking to expand usage of the app to some 2,000 parking spots in more than 40 locations in San Diego. The app claims nearly 100,000 …

BMO Financial Group, a unit of Bank of Montreal, announced it has linked to The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC’s Real-Time Payments network, enabling U.S. business clients to receive funds instantly from any sending bank connected to the network.ACI Worldwide Inc. said its Speedpay unit will allow customers of Entergy Services LLC, a …