Talk about an anticlimax. Did anyone really notice that on April 1 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s long-dreaded diktat regulating the prepaid industry finally took effect? We took note of the event, of course, in our daily news service, Digital Transactions News, because that’s our job. But though we bent …

A day long dreaded by the U.S. payments industry came and went on Monday with little fanfare and not much more gnashing of teeth. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s voluminous prepaid card rule finally took effect with sweeping provisions governing matters ranging from fee disclosures to error-resolution rights to consumers’ …

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, counseled Shakespeare’s Polonius. He never met today’s raft of tech-based creditors serving merchants eager to pump out sales. Stores have been offering credit to customers for at least a century. But the latest twist is to offer credit while the customer is at …

Other commercial companies have failed in their efforts to establish an industrial loan corporation, a form of bank, but much to banks’ distress, Square Inc. very well could prove to be the exception. “Fighting the ILC designation is a good way for the banks to slow a dangerous competitor, but …

Regulators and the states currently are more active than Congress on issues affecting the payments industry, according to the Electronic Transactions Association’s point person on governmental affairs. The divided Congress probably won’t pass any major payments-related legislation before the 2020 elections, says Scott Talbott, a senior vice president at the …

While the nation’s banking industry may not welcome the development, experts say Square Inc.’s recent efforts to establish an industrial loan corporation, a form of bank, could well succeed where others have failed. “Fighting the ILC designation is a good way for the banks to slow a dangerous competitor, but …

PayPal’s octopus-like strategy covers everything from P2P payments, bill pay, and the point of sale to parting ways with eBay. Can Schulman and Co. keep all the balls in the air? PayPal Holdings Inc. president and chief executive Dan Schulman can’t be accused of making small plans. “We aspire to …

The use of chatbots in financial services is about to explode, if research released this week is any indication. Adoption will be such that the technology will save banks worldwide $7.3 billion in annual operating costs by 2023, compared to a projected $209 million this year, estimates Juniper Research in …

Want to start—or bet on—the next big thing in payments? Forget glitz and glamor and focus on startups that address pressing problems with substantial and realistic solutions, argues Eric Grover. Successful payments fintechs such as Adyen, Ant Financial, Klarna, Stripe, and Square have generated enormous excitement. With the arguable exception …

The financial news has been full of dire stories about the beating tech stocks have been taking lately, but less well publicized is the action in private equity—specifically the creation of new payments-related unicorns. According to data from New York City-based CB Insights, which tracks private valuations, at least half …