The CFPB director should stop imposing politics on payments and stick to his remit. Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in March shared his conjured alternative-payments universe with politically simpatico CNBC. Relishing his celebrity, Chopra held forth on inflation, payment-system competition and fees, and cryptocurrency risk. The …

Aeropay, a specialist in payments for the cannabis industry, announced it and Flowhub, a point-of-sale platform for cannabis dispensaries, will work together on enabling automated clearing house payments via Aeropay for more than 1,000 dispensaries using Flowhub’s software.Paysafe Ltd. said it is expanding in the auto-finance market through a deal to …

Digital-currency payments specialist Circle Internet Financial LLC announced it has agreed to new terms with Concord Acquisition Corp., terminating an agreement it had reached with that company in July. The new agreement values Circle at $9 billion, twice the valuation set by the original SPAC combination. The holding company established by the original agreement …

Money-transfer powerhouse MoneyGram International Inc. will go private later this year in a deal announced Tuesday with private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC. Valued at $11 per common-stock share, the deal also includes assumption of $799 million in debt.  Expected to close in the fourth quarter, the deal will see …

The market for direct transfers between bank accounts is attracting fintechs—as well as the two global card networks—as real-time payments loom. While account-to-account transactions—think the automated clearing house—have been around for years, the shift to real-time payments is giving them a new boost. Little happens overnight in the payments industry. …

Real-time payments have proven value for many payment needs. Now, experts are looking at mining the potential for real time at the point of sale. The technology to enable real-time payments at the point of sale is available today. But many questions remain: Are consumers ready? Are merchants ready? Is …

ZmBIZI LLC released its Z2 smart phone that accepts tap-and-pay transactions without requiring an external POS terminal. The $550 smart phone was part of a Visa Tap to Phone test earlier this year and is expected to have full commercial availability in early 2022.Visa Inc.’s U.S. Spending Momentum Index fell for the second consecutive month, …

As part of its strategy to automate payouts for health-care and property-and-casualty carriers, Echo Health Inc., a provider of payment technology to insurance carriers, is partnering with KyckGlobal Inc. to enable claimants to receive payments digitally through PayPal, Venmo, push to card through Visa Direct, and the automated clearing house. …

Faster-payments providers have long identified insurance-claims payouts as a ripe market, and the business took big step in that direction with the announcement early Monday that the insurance carrier Amerisure has begun implementing ClaimsPay, a digital-payments platform from the 9-year-old fintech One Inc. The four-stage implementation is expected to replace …

GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A., said to be Brazil’s largest domestic airline, has chosen FIS Inc.’s Worldpay unit for payments processing in the 38 global market where the airline operates.Zum Rails, a provider of payments and open-banking software, launched anti-fraud technology for its Instant Deposit feature, which is enabled by Visa Direct.Humbl …