You wouldn’t always know it, listening to the top executives at Visa and Mastercard, but these two rival networks are still chiefly card networks. Thursday morning, Mastercard Inc. laid out for equity analysts an update on what it has called its “multirail strategy,” major moves into account-to-account money transfers, real-time payments, …

Mastercard Inc. said it will acquire Ekata, a digital identity services company, for $850 million. Ekata helps identify good customers and businesses and bad actors in real time, it said. Ekata, formerly the business-to-business unit of Whitepages Pro, spun off in 2019 and adopted the new name. The deal is expected …

More evidence emerges of how consumer spending has changed in the past year. Consumers are using their debit cards more for transactions at hotels and motels within the travel sector, according to the PSCU Payments Index for April. Released Thursday, the index shows that debit card use accounted for 35% …

Cardlytics Inc., a specialist in deriving marketing data from payments flows, has agreed to acquire customer-data platform Bridg Inc. for $350 million.Pay Theory, a specialist in payments technology for school districts, is integrating its services with Abre.io, a provider of administration platforms for elementary and high schools.Airvet, a provider of …

Forter Ltd., a specialist in online-fraud prevention, says merchants using the Magento e-commerce platform now have access to its services. Meanwhile, Mastercard Inc. says total U.S. retail sales increased 26.3% in March from March 2020. Online retailers using Adobe Inc.’s Magento platform can use a Magento plugin to ease the …

CardFlight Inc. has struck a deal with processor Global Payments Inc. that will see CardFlight’s SwipeSimple point-of-sale technology added to Global’s indirect sales channels. Atlanta-based Global says adding SwipeSimple to its wholesale product lineup will give its independent sales partners an omnichannel payment option. SwipeSimple supports contactless payments, EMV dipped, …

That the shift toward digital forms of payment was accelerated by the pandemic has been duly noted over the past year, but how much of that change will stick once the U.S. market and the rest of the world gets beyond Covid? Not all of it by any means, but …

Podium Corp Inc., a communications and payments provider, is adding card readers to enable face-to-face payments as well as remote payments. Announced Monday, the reader accepts EMV, magnetic stripe, and contactless payments. Podium did not say when the readers will be available or disclose their cost. Podium’s primary payment method …

Card-based biometric authentication took a step forward with an announcement early Wednesday that a technology from Fingerprint Cards AB has complied with reference specifications set by Mastercard Inc. The compliance is a first for fingerprint authentication on a card, according to Sweden-based Fingerprints and Fime, an organization that consults on …

As payments providers ramp up fast-payment capabilities that don’t depend on existing card-payment rails, pressure has mounted on the dominant U.S. card networks to enable quick transfers from senders to accounts held by receivers worldwide. Visa Inc. on Tuesday, for example, announced Visa Direct Payouts, which allows users to send …