Abra, a financial-services company specializing in digital assets, and American Express Co. have announced they will offer a rewards credit card that will let users pay with U.S. dollars but earn rewards in cryptocurrency. The new card, expected to debut late this year, will feature benefits such as Amex Offers, …

MagicCube Inc. has chiefly aimed its tap-to-pay technology at small sellers to allow them to take card payments directly on an off-the-shelf mobile device. But on Monday the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company announced a version of its i-Accept platform for enterprise and big-box merchants.  To make i-Accept more attractive to …

Consumers may not know what open banking is, but they sure like what it does. And the technology hasn’t even hit its stride yet. From real-time account verification and money movement to apps that provide lenders and landlords an up-to-the-minute overview of an applicant’s credit history, open-banking technology is the …

First came contactless. Now, transit payments are gaining the account-to-account advantage, and with it more flexibility for riders and insight for operators. Long heralded as a key factor in spurring contactless payment adoption, transit-payment programs are fully embracing the technology. Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic was a key instigator in this …

Focused on iGaming as a growth strategy, Paysafe Ltd. announced Monday it is expanding its relationship with Playtech plc, a provider of gambling software, to the United Kingdom and Europe. The deal builds off the two companies’ existing relationship in United States. The deal will allow iGaming operators in the U.K. …

It’s May, and that means it’s time for our annual exercise to seek out and describe the nonbank players, apart from the big networks, that are rewriting the rules for the digital exchange of value. Since 2004, Digital Transactions has traced the course of payments innovation through its nimblest practitioners—the …

One of the country’s biggest merchant associations on Monday joined a growing chorus of voices arguing fee increases planned by the major card networks for this month will exacerbate inflation. “American consumers are struggling under the worst inflation in four decades, and these increases would only make the situation worse,” …

A serious expansion of the Zelle peer-to-peer payments network or just saber rattling to get a better deal from the card networks? That’s one question raised by payments-industry experts after The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co.—two of the seven big financial institutions …

The 25 biggest U.S. merchant acquirers control about 90% of payment dollar volume, even as e-commerce may be losing some of its recent momentum, according to the latest ranking of U.S. merchant acquirers by The Strawhecker Group, released this week. Overall, U.S. acquirers processed more than $9 trillion in payment …

Payments is a complex business. Best to start by mastering the basics of pricing and security. Scratching their heads, your business leaders may ask, “Why do fees change for credit card processing? What’s this Level 1? 2? 3?” Then, they hit you with questions related to cybersecurity: “Wait, did you …