Visa Inc.’s top executives made it plain Thursday afternoon that the story of the company’s growth into the near future is threefold, including cryptocurrency, cross-border transactions, and the buy now, pay later trend. “Visa is enabling scale for BNPL, crypto, and wallets,” Visa chief executive Alfred Kelly told equity analysts …

The vision of turning mobile devices into tap-and-go POS terminals took a big step forward Thursday as MagicCube Inc. announced i-Accept Cloud, an open, cloud-based softPOS acceptance platform. i-Accept Cloud is expected to simplify the creation of new merchant payment acceptance and digital commerce solutions. By connecting the currently siloed …

Consulting firm The Strawhecker Group announced its list of best-performing payment gateways in a range of categories. CSG Forte and FIS (Express) were co-winners in the best-performing gateway category, with JPMorgan Chase (Orbital) as runner-up. Elavon (Fusebox) won for fastest transactions.With the majority of buy now, pay later accounts going unreported to …

The turbulent story of the Diem digital currency recorded yet another twist with reports on Tuesday that the two-and-a-half-year-old project is seeking to dispose of its assets. The latest news, first reported by Bloomberg, comes less than a year after the Diem Association moved its headquarters from Switzerland to the …

On Tuesday, Plaid Inc., a bellwether of the open-banking movement, announced the availability of Plaid Portal US, a privacy tool for consumers using Plaid’s technology. The move comes as firms that connect financial-services providers with consumer-account data seek to help account owners manage how their information is distributed and used by …

American Express Co. saw its crucial travel-and-entertainment business continue to recover in the final three months of 2021, leading top company executives Tuesday morning to express considerable optimism for 2022. But don’t look any time soon for the New York City-based card giant to make any major forays into buy …

The Federal Reserve’s release last week of a discussion paper exploring a central bank digital currency for the United States has evoked interest from a group that emerged two years ago to help launch just such an initiative. The Digital Dollar Project on Friday applauded the Fed’s effort and underscored …

Looking to help fintechs speed development of new banking applications, Unit, a banking-as-a-service platform, announced Thursday a pilot production environment that allows fintechs to instantly build and validate applications using real funds. The new product is expected to enable fintechs to build and test live bank accounts and issue virtual …

The Federal Reserve Board released a paper Thursday afternoon on the question of a central bank digital currency for the United States, and even though the Fed would play a crucial role in any such venture, observers looking for hints on how the central bank is leaning on the issue …

Celero Commerce made its second acquisition in a month with its deal to acquire Omega Technology, a Fort Thomas, Ky.-based payments provider. Nashville, Tenn.-based Celero says the combined company will process payments for more than 50,000 merchants at approximately $20 billion in annual card volume. Celero acquired Everest Payment Solutions in …