As Russian armed forces continue their assault on Ukraine, Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and American Express Co. late Saturday said they are suspending all operations in Russia, following up on actions taken by the networks nearly a week earlier. Meanwhile, reports began to filter out of Russia that at least some …

Block Inc., parent company of Square Inc., has become the latest payments provider to come under the scrutiny of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB, as well as attorneys general from multiple states, have requested information from Block related to how the company handles complaints and disputes from customers …

Buy now, pay later has been around for years, but since the onset of the Covid pandemic it has soared in popularity, attracting heavyweight payments companies, opening new payment avenues for consumers, and drawing the attention of federal regulators. Late Thursday, Splitit Payments Ltd. was the latest practitioner to report …

Marking its first full year as a public company, Paya Holdings Inc. cited organic growth, increasing ACH volume, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions as key growth drivers. Atlanta-based Paya reported payment volume of $11.7 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $9.2 billion from the same period in 2020, a …

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 …

The past two years have seen merchants become frequent targets of ransomware attacks, largely due to their weaker cybersecurity practices. The threat only promises to get worse. For cybercriminals, ransomware attacks are easy money. To cash in, hackers need only plant malware on a target’s network to gain entry. Once …

Apple’s Tap to Pay has captured the industry’s attention. Now the question is how far it can get with it—and how rivals will react. Apple Inc. stirred up the point-of-sale industry last month with an announcement that it will introduce within a few months technology that will enable merchants to …

The Visa Acceptance Cloud will virtualize POS terminals. What will that mean for acquirers and merchants? The dawn of a new era for point-of-sale terminals may be upon the payments industry with the announcement earlier this year of the Visa Acceptance Cloud. The platform aims to move to a cloud-based …

Even crypto businesses that keep saying crypto crime is tolerable recently had to acknowledge a whopping $14 billion in reported criminal crypto activity occurred in 2021. The true figure is at least an order of magnitude higher, since many ransomware victims don’t even report the crime. The sad reality is …

The pandemic has speeded adoption of the automated clearing house network for business-to-business payments, while transactions cleared and settled through the network on the same day they’re initiated are booming, according to full-year 2021 numbers released early last month by Nacha, the governing body for the nationwide network. We’ve written …