Buy now, pay later and earned-wage access services could be powerful tools to end poverty, if they are not regulated out of existence. Both of these products directly address one of the main factors causing poverty: income volatility. In “The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of …

The PCI Security Standards Council published version 4 of the PCI Data Security Standard. Features of the new standard include, among other changes, updated firewall terminology and a requirement to implement multi-factor authentication for access to the cardholder data environment.Processor Adyen said it is expanding beyond payments to offer embedded financial products, including Adyen …

Cannabis-payments platform CanPay said it has passed half a billion dollars in transactions, processing for more than 800 merchant locations in 31 in states.A cryptocurrency-investment platform called BitStore introduced a Mastercard-branded prepaid card that allows users to make payments at merchants with their crypto assets. Processing is handled by Alchemy Pay.Payments provider PayTrace Inc. announced it …

With consumers starting to dine out again, improving their dining experience through digital ordering and tableside payments solutions is becoming a pressing need for restaurants. Texas Roadhouse has become the latest restaurant chain to take the digital plunge, implementing Ziosk’s Cloud Commerce Platform for digital tableside ordering and payments. The …

When Fiserv Inc. acquired First Data Corp. three years ago, the Brookfield, Wis.-based fintech took on an enormous commitment to the merchant-acquiring business. Late Tuesday, Fiserv’s top management made clear just how big that commitment is, how fast it’s growing, and how big it will get. “We see a clear …

Visa Inc. will decrease interchange rates by 10% for small businesses accepting consumer credit cards in April, according to a Reuters report. The reduced rates will apply to online and card-present transactions and only to merchants with $250,000 or less in Visa consumer credit volumes, Reuters attributed its information to an …

Cross-border payments specialist Flywire Corp. reported its payment volume rose 75% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, to $3.1 billion. Volume for 2021 totaled $13.2 billion, up 76% from 2020.Walmart Inc. announced customers can send remittances from any of its U.S. stores to any of its stores in Mexico for a fee as low …

Shift4 Payments Inc. early Tuesday said it has concluded agreements to acquire international e-commerce acquirer Finaro and cryptocurrency-based donation platform Giving Block in deals valued at $875 million in cash and stock, including future earnout provisions. The latter deal has already closed, while Allentown, Pa.-based Shift4 expects to close the …

Sales of gift cards in the United States remained steady in 2021, with 73% of consumers purchasing the same number of cards, or more, compared to a year earlier, says a report from Fiserv Inc.  Online merchants were the biggest beneficiaries, with 53% of respondents saying they purchased a gift …

Business-to-business payments provider Tipalti Inc. reported “unprecedented” growth in payments volume in 2021, with volume growing more than 100% from 2020 to more than $36 billon. The company’s client base increased to more than 2,000, including GoDaddy, Roku, ZipRecruiter, and Amazon Twitch.Fintech Social Finance Inc. said its SoFi Technologies Inc. unit has launched SoFi …