E-commerce has been setting records during the coronavirus pandemic, but processors should be thinking about ways to innovate. For example: how to make transactions simpler, faster, and more secure? Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, e-commerce was big business for merchants and processors. But since the pandemic struck in March, online …

Software-based options are proliferating for merchants who want to use their own mobile phones for payment card acceptance. Are we entering the era of Square II? Square Inc. made payments history a decade ago with its iconic dongle that enabled iPhones to accept payment cards (“How the Twitter Guy Changed …

This versatile point-of-sale option is growing fast. Is it threatening credit and debit card traffic? Many merchants can’t say no to buy now, pay later (BNPL) options, which are arriving in force as retailers and consumers gear up for a holiday shopping season that may be busier than usual. Though …

This cryptic headline is quite telling, and it deserves proper attention from the payment community. Payment people know that EMV replaced magnetic-stripe technology, and that it sometimes takes uncomfortably long seconds to get the transaction approved. But few appreciate its big, innovative step in e-commerce. Instead of repeated exposure of …

Visa Inc. isn’t taking it lying down. The card network last month delivered a rebuke to the Department of Justice over the government’s antitrust lawsuit attempting to block Visa’s $5.3-billion acquisition of Plaid Inc., calling the lawsuit “legally flawed and contradicted by the facts.” The Department of Justice, which had …

Have you noticed lately that the so-called card networks are talking less and less about cards? This seems especially true of what we used to call the two big bank card networks, Visa and Mastercard. They ceased formally being “bank” card networks when they went public a decade ago, and …

Unlike Visa and Mastercard, Plaid is not just another credit and debit card company largely beholden to the big banks. It uses modern technology, in a sector that has been slow to adopt it, to create a new payments paradigm. It likely has no plans to issue cards or use …

With digital and physical commerce melding, Fiserv Inc. intends to position its Carat platform as the engine to enable providers such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit and merchants to process transactions across both channels. Fiserv took a big step in that direction last week when it announced it will enable …

Finally! No doubt, merchants throughout the country are applauding the Justice Department’s suit against Visa to stop its planned acquisition of Plaid, a potential competitor. For far too long, we’ve witnessed the growth of Visa’s dominance of the debit card business, which has come at a huge cost to America’s …

The pandemic has forced the world—individuals and businesses alike—to reassess their approaches toward life and reevaluate daily processes. The same goes for convenience stores with a particular focus on solution-driven innovation and adaptation. They must evolve their businesses with modern technologies, such as contactless payment processing, pre-store visit staging, and …