Buy now, pay later specialist Klarna AB raised $1 billion in an oversubscribed equity funding round that pegged the company’s valuation at $31 billion. Major U.S. clients include Macys, Etsy, Sephora, Ralph Lauren, and Urban Outfitters.In related news, BNPL provider Splitit Payments Ltd. announced its merchant sales volume increased almost 180% in 2020 to …

The EMV liability shift for fuel pumps arrives next month. After two deadline extensions, is the petroleum industry finally ready? The date set for the EMV liability shift for U.S. gas pumps is finally upon merchants and the payments industry. There’s no expectation in the industry that the April 16 …

There has now been a year of pandemic, but also of regulation, litigation, and malfeasance in the payments business. What’s going on, and has anything really changed? Like everyone else in the “Time of Covid,” the people of payments woke up just about every day last year wondering what new …

The two big card networks have made no bones about their interest in supporting cryptocurrency transactions, and last month both made major moves in that direction. The actions came as the value of the leading virtual currency, Bitcoin. has soared to record highs in recent months. The bigger move came …

Now that criminals have milked the bulk of their opportunities related to pandemic relief efforts, they are turning their attention back to their old standby, payments-related fraud. Not surprisingly, their target of choice is e-commerce, which has rocketed due to restrictions on the number of consumers allowed in physical stores and …

The economic uncertainty brought on last year by the coronavirus pandemic has given a lift to the point-of-sale installment lending trend, with payments giants like PayPal Holdings Inc. jumping into a market that has been pioneered by fast-growing buy now, pay later startups like Affirm Inc., Afterpay Ltd., Klarna AB, …

To support a cryptocurrency-payments launch set for April in the United States, London-based digital-payments platform Wirex has linked to crypto-trading firm Zero Hash. Harold Montgomery, former chief executive of independent sales organization Calpian Inc., is managing director for Wirex USA Inc.Parking-app provider ParkMobile LLC said its latest municipal agreement allows its app to be …

Payments-technology provider Mogo Inc. is initially acquiring about 20% of Coinsquare, a Canadian cryptocurrency-trading platform, for US$44.4 million, with an option to purchase another 20% in the future. Mogo’s first option to increase its investment in Coinsquare, which acts as the trading platform for MogoCrypto, which Mogo launched in 2018, …

As consumers increasingly turn to fintechs rather than banks, money decisions and payments share are shifting away from traditional financial institutions, according to a study from data-analytics firm Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO). Some 34% of consumers have at least one account with, or conduct financial activity with, a nonbank provider, while …

Payments provider Lightspeed POS Inc. reported total revenue of $57.6 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 79% year-over-year. Revenue was $49.3 when excluding the recent acquisitions of payments providers ShopKeep and Upserve. The company’s merchant base grew 74% year-over-year to 115,000, or 84,000 excluding the acquisitions, up from 66,000.Fiserv Inc. and the Inclusive Innovation …